The Gods Must Be Crazy
by Spottedfyre
Summary: A Dunmer wrongly accused of nine counts of murder and necrophilia finds himself on a quest to save Cyrodiil, and has many strange adventures along the way. Will include eventual slash with said Dunmer and Lucien Lachance. Currently undergoing rewrite.
1. Shriller Than All the Music

A/N: Hello there, and welcome to the new and improved version of _The Gods Must Be Crazy_! Long story short, I ended up looking through this and realizing it could be a lot better than its original version, and I wanted to make that happen. Also, this is my way of beating myself into writing in first person POV, because I need to get into that habit for my original stuff. For those of you who read the first version of this, welcome back! The major plot points here will be staying the same, but a lot of parts are going to be heavily revised and, in some cases, expanded, because I ended up skipping over a few things I'd initially wanted to include in this fic's first draft, so if you're interested, I hope reading this again shouldn't be too boring. Also, thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorited/put this thing on your alert list in its first incarnation; this thing never would have gotten finished without you! And happy third birthday to this fanfic itself. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I would love to hear any and all feedback you may have for me, whether it be questions, praise, criticism, or anything one could feasibly fit into the review box. Or a PM, if that's what floats your boat. It's always nice to hear from people! If nothing else, it makes it feel like my writing isn't just me talking to myself.

Disclaimer: All I own here is my own personal version of the Hero of Kvatch. If that changes, I promise you'll be the first to know.

And Hypherion is nice enough to betaread this for me. And make me pretty cover images.

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><p>After a few weeks in a cell with no one for company but another Dunmer across the hall, who'd lost interest in me after realizing I wasn't a woman, my stay in the Imperial City Prison started to get to me. It wasn't that I'd never been arrested before – what I did for a living at the time wasn't exactly legal – but it <em>was <em>the first time I'd been arrested for anything serious. It was also the first time I was in prison for something I hadn't actually done. Or at least, I hadn't done what I'd been officially charged with. I'd done plenty of things I wasn't proud of, but as far as I knew, murder and necrophilia were definitely not on that list. And I like to think that if I'd murdered nine people and had my way with each of their corpses in a single night, I'd have remembered it. Still, the thought of spending the rest of my life in prison for it without so much as a trial almost made me wish I had. Almost.

I sighed, and flopped down on the slightly damp, straw-covered stone shelf that was my bed. A trial wouldn't have made a difference, really. Whether I got a chance to explain myself or not, even I wasn't sure exactly what happened. One moment I was wandering the Waterfront, looking for work, and the next thing I knew I was naked in a bed full of corpses with a splitting headache and a guard yelling at me. My best guess was that whoever killed everyone else had wanted me dead, too, but didn't finish the job for some reason. Not that I thought anyone would believe me. I just wanted a chance to say it before someone important remembered where I was and got around to having me executed. If that's actually what they had planned for me. All I had to go on was one conversation with my fellow prisoner, and he probably wasn't a reliable source of news.

That thought wasn't much of a comfort, and I ended up lying awake longer than I probably should have thinking of all the possible messy ends that might have been planned for me. I must have fallen asleep at some point, though, because I woke up to someone making noise in the hallway outside my cell. I tried to ignore it at first, but it kept getting closer, which made it hard to keep hoping they weren't there for me. Soon I could make out bits and pieces of what they were saying, something about someone being killed and a cell that shouldn't have had a prisoner in it. I realized that that last bit probably applied to me when a fluffy-robed man surrounded by guards unlocked my door and entered my cell.

I didn't have the first idea what someone like that would want from me, but if this was going to be my execution, I hoped they'd at least make it quick and clean. I stood as the man in the fancy robes approached me, and tried to finger-comb my hair into something more presentable than the rat's nest it had knotted itself into in my weeks without a mirror. I figured the least I could do for myself was make sure I didn't look like a mess when they dragged my body away.

But instead of ordering his guards to kill me, or doing it himself, he just said, "I've seen you... Let me see your face," and put his hand on my cheek. After staring into my eyes like he was looking for something important for what felt like an eternity, he nodded to himself. "Yes... You are the one from my dreams..."

"Who are you? And what's going on here?" I asked, backing myself into a corner. I didn't particularly like the way he was looking at me, and I liked the fact that I'd apparently been in his dreams even less. No one whose dreams involved a Dunmer of my description could be entirely sane, and being trapped in a cell with a madman and his armed guards was never a good thing.

"I am your emperor, Uriel Septim. My sons have been assassinated, and I am next. I am being escorted out of the city via a secret escape route that leads through your cell," he explained, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

It took a while to get my tongue working again, but I managed it somehow. "I'm Remy... And I am, or at least I _was_, working as a prostitute in this lovely city of yours until I got locked in here." In retrospect, it was not the best way to introduce myself, and I'd gone and said it to the emperor, of all people. Still, at least it was better than saying what I was actually imprisoned for. That _really_ would have been awkward. And at least spending the rest of my life in prison meant no one had to know how far I'd stuffed my foot into my mouth. Maybe my luck was finally taking a turn for the better.

"Perhaps the gods have placed you here so that we may meet. As for what you have done... it does not matter. That is not what you will be remembered for."

"If you say so..." I replied, wishing I had half as much faith in myself as the emperor did. "What do I do now?"

"You will find your own path. Take care... there will be blood and death before he end."

Before I could ask what any of that meant, the emperor's guards opened a passageway hidden behind one of my cell's walls and guided him down the dark hallway it led to. I just stared at the new hole in my wall for a while after that, trying to decide whether I wanted to follow him or not. If I was even supposed to follow him. I didn't think that whatever was on the other side of that hole could be any worse than staying in my cell, though, so I headed down the passage before someone decided to check on me and move me to a cell without a hole in it.

I caught up with the emperor and his guards at around the same time as a group of assassins did. I was fairly handy with a dagger, but it didn't look like I'd be a match for any of them, and I didn't have anything to use as a weapon if I _did _join the fight, so I stayed out of the room until it was over. One of the emperor's guards ended up dying, and the rest of the group left me with her corpse after locking the only way out behind them. I assumed that was the end of my escape attempt until a pair of rats decided to smash a hole in a wall just as I'd made up my mind to go back to my cell. I managed to fight them off with the dead guard's shortsword without getting bitten too many times, then decided to at least take a look at the hole they'd come out of before resigning myself to spending the rest of my life in prison.

Somehow, after fighting my way through a small army of rats and goblins, I ended up in the same chamber as the emperor and his guards again. They'd just finished fighting off another group of assassins, and the moment one caught sight of me he had me shoved up against a wall with a sword at my neck before I could so much as say 'hello'. Clearly, he didn't care nearly as much for me as his master did.

"How did he manage to find us again?" the other guard asked, looking like he was just as surprised at my luck as I was. "Kill him, he might be working with the assassins."

"W-wait a moment, there!" I stammered, "Can't we talk this over? I mean look at me, I couldn't possibly be with them! I don't have the shiny weapons and armor, I'm half-starved, and I practically glow in the dark. What use would they have for me?"

The guard holding me just snorted, but before he could carry out his friend's order the emperor took a step forward.

"You are not to kill him," he said. "He can help us. He _must _help us."

"As you wish, sire," the guard replied, glaring at me as he lowered his blade.

As soon as he let go of me, I was at the emperor's side. I didn't want to be any closer to his guards than I had to. Granted, I had no idea what sort of 'help' I could offer, or how safe providing that help would be, but I didn't have any better plans.

"They cannot understand why I trust you. They've not seen what I've seen. How can I explain? Listen. You know the Nine? How they guide our fates with an invisible hand?" the emperor asked.

"I'm not on good terms with the gods..." I replied. Or at least, I didn't think I was. If the Nine liked me, I doubted I would have ended up in that prison cell in the first place. Though I didn't see what my thoughts on religion had to do with anything. I wondered if the emperor was always so strange, or if his mind had just cracked due to all the assassination attempts. I'd have believed either one, really.

"I've served the Nine all my days, and I chart my course by the cycles of the heavens. The skies are marked with numberless sparks, each a fire, and every one a sign. The signs I read show the end of my path. My death, a necessary end, will come when it will come."

"Aren't you afraid to die?" I asked. The emperor seemed strangely calm about everything he'd gone through that night, and to be honest, it was a bit unsettling. Not fearing death was one thing, but accepting it so easily was something else entirely. I almost wished he'd cry, or scream, or do _something _to show he didn't want to accept his destiny without a fight. It would've made him seem more... human.

"I have lived well, and my ghost shall rest easy. In your face, I behold the sun's companion. The dawn of Akatosh's bright glory may banish the coming darkness. With such hope, and with the promise of your aid, my heart must be satisfied." The emperor smiled, patted my shoulder, and followed his guards down another dark tunnel. Much as I wanted him to give me a real explanation of what was going on, and what part I was supposed to play in it, I realized that I wasn't likely to get anything else out of him.

"Where are we going?" I asked, following as closely behind the emperor as I could without stepping on his robes. I wasn't about to get left behind again if I could avoid it.

"I go to my grave. A tongue shriller than all the music calls me. You shall follow me yet for a while, then we must part."

I just sighed and followed the emperor and his guards through their escape route. We fought off so many assassins I lost count along the way, until we found an excessively large group of them blocking the exit. I got shoved into a side room with the emperor, with orders to guard him with my life, while the guards tried to fight through them. How I was supposed to guard him against people far better trained and equipped than I was was beyond me, but I didn't have much choice in the matter. At least the room we were in looked relatively assassin-proof.

"I can go no further," the emperor said, startling me out of my thoughts. "You alone must stand against the Prince of Destruction and his mortal servants. He must not have the Amulet of Kings! Take the Amulet. Give it to Jauffre. He alone knows where to find my last son. Find him, and close shut the jaws of Oblivion."

"Your amulet? This is... the part where you die, then?"

He smiled and nodded. "This is where my journey ends. For you though, the road is long and dangerous. Now, give me your hand."

I did as he asked, and as soon as soon as he'd pressed his amulet into my hand, one of the room's walls slid out of place and an assassin stabbed a knife into his back. I gave him a matching wound in his throat while he was distracted by the emperor's death, just to make things fair. If the feeling of his blood bubbling out over my hand and the little gurgling sound he made as he fell to the floor felt more satisfying than they should have, I didn't think anything of it at the time.

When the fighting died down in the other room, only one guard was left. However he felt about me not saving the emperor, he told me where I could find the Jauffre person I was supposed to deliver the Amulet of Kings to, then gave me his torch to light my way out while he stayed behind to guard the emperor's corpse.

Once I'd seen what the rest of my way out looked like, I wished he'd kept the torch. It didn't do much to light my way, but it did give me a wonderful view of the exact contents of the Imperial City's sewer system. I was almost happy when it went out after I slipped and fell into a pile of goop I was probably better off not identifying. There are some things mortals were never meant to know, and making the rest of that journey in darkness saved me from learning them.

The sewer tunnels eventually brought me to the shore of Lake Rumare, and I didn't waste any time before getting into the water and washing the sewer filth off myself. After a bit of scrubbing, I got myself to look as normal as I ever did, grinning to myself as my hair returned to its usual shade of pink from the greenish-black mess it turned into after my fall in the sewers. From there, it wasn't hard to find my way to my cozy little shack on the Waterfront. I didn't stay long; just long enough to find myself a clean set of clothing, a belt to strap my shortsword to, and a scrap of cloth to tie my hair back with. Strange as he was, the emperor was the reason I was free and alive, and I wasn't about to dishonor his memory by refusing to grant his dying wish. After all, he'd just wanted me to walk to Chorrol and deliver an amulet. How hard could that possibly be?

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><p>AN: And so ends the first chapter of this fanfic's revision. I hope you enjoyed it, and that you have a wonderful rest of your day! The next chapter should be up no more than a week from now.


	2. Trouble Understanding the Gods

A/N: And now this rewrite is officially in progress! And its rating has been changed to T, because there really wasn't anything in the original version of this that warranted an M rating. If I'm wrong and something I have here is inappropriate for a T rated fanfic, please let me know so I can adjust that. Anyway, the entire remainder of this fanfic still exists, it just isn't posted here right now so I don't have a horrible mismatch in the POV and writing quality on this. If something happens that prevents me from finishing this rewrite, I promise I'll give it a bit of a polish and add it back on to this story so it has a proper ending. Also, if anyone is curious or worried, I haven't abandoned_ When Life Gives You Dragons_; I'm partway through its next chapter, and hope to have it up within the next few days. And I'm hoping to have the next chapter of this done by this time next week.

Anyway, my main fix in this chapter was Martin's characterization, so I'm hoping he sounds more like himself here than he did in the first version of this chapter. Any thoughts on how the new POV is working out would also be much appreciated. As would any thoughts on anything else in this fanfic, for that matter.

Disclaimer: The only thing I own here is Remy.

And Hypherion is still betareading this.

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><p>As I stumbled through the small encampment outside what was left of Kvatch, wearing battered, oversized armor and missing most of my blood, I realized that I really needed to learn how to say 'no'. Everything had started off beautifully; I'd actually enjoyed my walk to Weynon Priory, and once I got there Jauffre was reasonable enough to accept that my story about how I got the Amulet of Kings was too ridiculous to be a lie. As soon as I'd given him the amulet, though, everything fell downhill faster than a slippy drunk.<p>

Instead of thanking me and sending me on my way, Jauffre decided that my delivering the amulet made me the best possible person to send after the emperor's bastard son, Martin. I didn't much like the thought of getting more involved in whatever was going on than I already was, but I'd agreed to do it, anyway. It felt too much like the right thing to do for me to walk away from it with a clear conscience, and when another priest offered to lend me his horse on my way out, I'd assumed I could have it done before the day's end. Arriving at Kvatch to find the city in flames and a giant, fiery portal to Oblivion blocking its gates changed that.

In the heat of the moment, I'd thrown myself through the portal and into Oblivion itself. My time there was a blur of sharp claws, snapping teeth, blinding flames, and freezing, ash-filled air, but I managed to keep myself alive long enough to remove the sigil stone that kept it in place somehow. The high from shutting an Oblivion gate kept my mind fuzzy enough for me to charge into Kvatch and reclaim the city along with what was left of the city guard, until it wore off when instead of the scamp I'd been fighting, I stuck my blade into a guard. I hadn't meant to; he just ran right in front of me after I'd already started stabbing. Judging by how fast he went all limp and glassy-eyed, he was dead before he hit the ground.

If any of the other guards noticed what I'd done, they didn't have any reaction I could see. Which just made the whole thing feel worse, really, but there was too much left to do for me to sit down and feel guilty. All the other guards except for their leader, Savlian Matius, died reclaiming the rest of the city and castle from the daedra, and all I got out of my attempt to rescue the count was a long-dead corpse. In retrospect, I'd been far too blunt when describing his condition to Savlian, but at that point we were both too tired for it to turn into a fight. He just yelled for a bit, then gave me his old cuirass in exchange for the count's ring and shoved me out the door to look for Martin.

After asking around the encampment for a bit, I found him, alive and well, leaning against a tent. I'd never been so happy to see a priest. He looked a lot like his father, really. Younger, of course, and his hair was brown instead of white, but he had those same light blue eyes that looked like they could see into your soul.

"Martin!" I cried, and didn't so much hug him as collapse onto him from exhaustion. It didn't have quite the same effect, but at least I'd tried. "By the Nine, am I glad to see you."

"Have we met before?" he asked, probably trying to figure out why a bloody, bedraggled Dunmer was clinging to him and making a mess of his robes. Still, he'd been nice enough to hold me up instead of shoving me off him. It wasn't a bad start.

"Um... no, but I came here to find you. It's good to see you're not a corpse." I peeled myself off him, and managed to stand without swaying too much.

"So you're the one everyone's been talking about. I heard about how you helped the Guard drive the daedra back. Well done. Though if it's a priest you need, I don't think I'll be much help to you. I'm having trouble understanding the gods right now..."

"I don't need a priest, I need _you._ You have to come with me to Weynon Priory, now. You aren't safe here."

"Of course I'm not safe here; no one is!" Martin snapped. "What could you possibly need me for that's more important than caring for Kvatch's people? Explain yourself."

"Right. You wouldn't know, would you?" I sighed; just once, it would've been nice to have a story that actually made sense. "This is going to sound crazy, but you have to believe me. You're the emperor's son, and at the moment you're the only person who can stop this Oblivion madness before Mehrunes Dagon takes over all of Tamriel."

"That is crazy. I'm just a priest of Akatosh. My father was a farmer. I'm sorry, but you have the wrong man." Martin shook his head and started to back away from me, like he thought I wasn't quite right in the head. Granted, after agreeing to go along with this amulet business and jumping through an Oblivion gate, I'd have been the first to admit that there probably _was _something wrong with my head, but that wasn't the point. If he could accept his city being destroyed by an army of daedra, I didn't see why Martin couldn't accept being the emperor's long-lost son.

I grabbed his sleeve before he could get too far away. I hadn't come so far and gotten myself ripped to shreds to be labeled as crazy and dismissed; the fate of the world depended on my actions, and I was not about to let the world down. "You don't understand, the emperor told me about you before he died. You didn't know you were his son because no one wanted you to. Please, just come with me!"

Martin's face softened a little. "The emperor spoke to you before he died? And he told you to find me?"

"Yes! Why would I lie about something like that; I have nothing to gain from it."

"This is insane, but... I think you may be telling the truth."

"So you'll come with me?"

"Yes. Lead on."

I led him to where I'd left my horse before he had a chance to change his mind. "You should take the horse; if you don't go too fast, I can keep up. Making the future emperor walk so far is probably against all sorts of laws."

"I appreciate the offer, but I think I can survive making the journey on foot. You look like you can barely stand... I wouldn't want you injuring yourself on my account."

"Thank you..." After a few failed attempts, I managed to hoist myself onto the horse. "We don't have to travel too far; Weynon Priory is just outside Chorrol."

A few minutes down the road, Martin said, "You seem to know a great deal about me, but I don't recall you giving me so much as your name. It would be a shame not to learn it after all you've done for Kvatch."

"I'm Remy. Though honestly, my name probably doesn't matter. I don't plan to make a habit of this hero-ing business. I'm perfectly content to live out the rest of my days as a nameless Waterfront resident after this is done."

"I can't say I blame you. Entering Oblivion must have been a harrowing experience." Martin paused for a moment, then asked, "If you don't mind me asking, how exactly did you become involved in this?"

"It's a bit of a long story..."

"We have time."

"Are you sure you want to know? It's not very... priestly."

Martin smiled at that. "Most stories aren't. I'm sure I can handle it."

"All right, then. The important part is that I ran into the emperor – your father, or so everyone seems to believe – when he tried to get out of the Imperial City through an escape route that happened to lead through my prison cell."

"You were in prison?"

"Yes."

"What for?"

"I had a small bounty for a couple counts of prostitution."

"Strange... Don't you usually need a higher bounty than that for the guards to take an interest in you?"

"How would you know about that?"

"I wasn't always a priest. In my youth, I was a very different man. Let's leave it at that."

"So, you're not going to give me a lecture about what I do for a living?"

"No. So long as it was your choice and done willingly, I have no objections to it."

"I... thank you. You're not half bad for a priest, you know that?"

"I suppose I'll have to take that as a compliment." Martin smiled again, and if I didn't know better I'd have sworn he was trying not to laugh. "Would you like to tell me what you were actually arrested for, now?"

"Nine counts of murder... and necrophilia. Not that I was guilty of it, but when the guards find you in a bed of corpses and you have no idea what happened, they don't tend to care much for what you have to say."

"...Oh. I'm sorry that happened to you."

"Thanks. It's nice to have someone believe in me, for a change."

"Don't you have any family?"

"I used to. An adoptive one, anyway; a Nord couple took me in when I was just a baby. Damn good parents, but they were already old when they found me. They've both been dead for a while now."

"What about friends? Surely you weren't completely alone in the world."

"Not since I moved here from Skyrim a few years back. It's not so bad, though. I don't mind being alone, and the Waterfront's always crowded enough for me to find company when I need it."

"I'm glad you've found happiness for yourself, then."

I shrugged. As far as I was concerned, I'd had a good enough life, and until my false arrest I hadn't seen any reason I should be unhappy with it. Making the best of what I had just seemed to make more sense than sulking over what I didn't have.

"So, Skyrim... That explains the accent. I was having a hard time placing it."

"Most people do. I guess it sounds strange coming from a Dunmer," I said, happy he'd changed the subject. At least I was used to talking about my voice. "Though you're pretty unusual, yourself."

"I never said I wasn't."

With someone to talk to, Chorrol came into view after what felt like no time at all. I was looking forward to handing Martin over to Jauffre and going back to my old life, and it seemed like that could actually happen until we met a shepherd on the road who told us that Weynon Priory was under attack. I should have known things wouldn't be that easy.

When we reached the priory, everyone but Jauffre was dead, and before we'd managed to fight off the assassins that had attacked it, one had run off with the Amulet of Kings. According to Jauffre, the only safe place to keep Martin until we'd found a way to get the amulet back was Cloud Ruler Temple, so instead of sleeping and making my way home, I got a few moments of rest and a healing potion before riding to Bruma. We didn't run into any trouble on the roads, but things got a bit complicated when we reached the city gates.

The emperor might have been nice enough to release me from prison, but his death had stopped news of that from reaching the guards in charge of enforcing his laws. As soon as they caught sight of me, I was in prison for murder and necrophilia again, with the additional charge of escaping prison tacked onto my sentence. After several hours of arguing, Martin and Jauffre managed to convince them I'd been pardoned and get me free again, but by that point it had grown too dark to make it up the path to Cloud Ruler Temple. Once I'd gotten settled into my room at the Jerall View Inn, I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

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><p>My latest recruit had proven to be a considerable challenge to locate. Under different circumstances, I might have praised his skill in evading a Speaker of the Dark Brotherhood, but I did not appreciate expending so much time and energy on a fool that was likely to get himself killed on his first contract. The Dunmer's murder of a Kvatch guard had been a sloppy affair; his ensuing escape from justice, a mere stroke of luck. The Night Mother desired his presence in our family in spite of this, however, and the task of his acquisition had fallen to me. Having no desire to question her will, I began my search in Kvatch, where I had been directed to Chorrol, where I had, in turn, been directed to Bruma.<p>

There, one of the city's beggars wisely directed me to my quarry's location, the Jerall View Inn, without demanding anything in exchange. The innkeeper divulged the location of his room without question, and when I'd located his door, it became clear that he hadn't bothered to so much as lock himself in. Apparently personal security was not high on his list of priorities. I entered the room, remaining unseen and unheard as I shut the door behind me, and immediately wondered if this was all some kind of sick joke.

It was common enough for recruits to have a decidedly nonthreatening appearance, but I had never seen anything quite like this one before. Had he not chosen to sleep shirtless, on top of his blankets, his slight build and mop of ridiculous pink hair might have led me to assume he was a woman, and I'd entered the wrong room. While a washbasin filled with reddish-brown water suggested he'd made a token attempt at bathing himself, he was still remarkably filthy, and had foolishly positioned himself as far from his weapons and armor as was physically possible. Not a single aspect of his actions or appearance suggested an aptitude for stealth, discretion, or even self-preservation; if I hadn't known better, I'd have assumed he was trying to get himself murdered in his sleep. In spite of my best efforts, the Dunmer proved... resistant to my attempts at waking him, and I was left with little choice but to watch him sleep until he woke of his own accord. I hoped that he at least preferred to start his days early...

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><p>I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to face whatever the world decided to throw at me. Until I sat up and noticed that the world had thrown a strange, robed man standing over my bed at me, anyway. Whatever he wanted from me, I didn't think it was anything good, so I did what any reasonable person would have done in that situation and tried tackling him to the floor. When it actually worked, I wished I'd thought up the rest of my plan before putting it into action. Then I might have done something better than just sitting on his chest until he flipped us over and pinned me to the floor.<p>

"Would you stop struggling? I am not trying to harm you!" he hissed, glaring at me from beneath his hood. Most of his face was too shadowy for me to get a good look at, but his nose definitely looked Imperial, and if the stubble covering his jaw was anything to go by, he hadn't shaved in at least a day.

"It's not me I'm worried about!" I managed to wriggle out from under him somehow, and made a dash for my shortsword, that I'd left all the way across the room like an idiot. The man looked far too much like the assassins that had murdered the emperor for my liking, and I was not about to sit by and watch as Martin was murdered, too. I didn't make it far before my attacker was on me again, pinning me against a wall this time.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, but I assure you that my intentions here are entirely nonviolent... So long as you cooperate, anyway."

Martin picked that exact moment to collect me so that we could continue on our journey. "Come on Remy, you can sleep more at Cloud Ruler Temple; Jauffre says we need to be going hours ago, and... I'll just leave you two alone for now..." he said, turning around and firmly shutting the door behind him after he got a good look at us.

"Damn," I muttered, looking wistfully at the door as I tried to get myself free again. Even if he'd gotten the completely wrong idea about what was going on, I still felt like I'd betrayed Martin somehow, and I wanted nothing more than to find him and explain what had really happened. I wasn't going anywhere until whoever had me pinned against the wall got what he wanted, though, so I let myself go limp. "Fine, I'll hear you out. Will you at least tell me your name?"

"I am Lucien Lachance, a Speaker for the Dark Brotherhood. And you, you are a killer. A taker of life. A harvester of souls. Your work, your deathcraft, pleases the Night Mother. And so, I come to you with an offering. An opportunity... to join our rather unique family."

"Please continue, Lucien. ...You can let go of me now. I won't run." Lucien let go of me, and I think I surprised us both when I kept my word. I'm not sure what it was, but something about his voice and the way he talked made me want to hear the rest of what he had to say. He wasn't half bad to look at, either, or at least the parts of his face I could see under his hood weren't. I wondered what he'd look like without it. Gods, he even smelled nice... like crushed herbs and flowers. Granted, he was still an assassin, which meant he could have been involved in the emperor's death, but seeing as he hadn't tried to kill Martin while he was standing in my doorway, I doubted it. Besides, I didn't know much about the Dark Brotherhood, but it didn't seem like they'd be stupid enough to risk angering the entire Empire by wiping out the Septim bloodline. I didn't see how hearing him out would hurt anything.

"Ah, I find your etiquette refreshing. Especially considering your... initial response to my presence. On the Green Road to the north of Bravil lies the Inn of Ill Omen. There you will find a man named Rufio. Kill him, and your initiation into the Dark Brotherhood will be complete. Do this, and the next time you sleep in a location I deem secure, I will reveal myself once more, bearing the love of your new family."

"Oh gods, this is awkward... You see, I'm not actually a murderer. That guard in Kvatch was an accident, and I don't know what you heard about the other murders and necrophilia, but I swear I didn't do it!"

Lucien raised an eyebrow when I mentioned the necrophilia charge, but nothing else I'd said seemed to affect him. "No? The Night Mother seems to think otherwise. Allow me to grand you a gift, in case you reconsider. It is a virgin blade, and thirsts for blood." he said, offering me a rather nice-looking dagger.

I wasn't about to let an opportunity like that pass me by, so I took it. It would be easier to use than the shortsword I'd been stuck with, at least.

"Now, I bid you farewell. I do hope we meet again soon," Lucien purred, then walked out my door and disappeared before I could say anything else.

I just stood there for a moment, staring at the dagger. I had no idea why, but I was actually considering taking Lucien up on his offer. At first, I wondered if he'd cast some kind of charm spell on me, but it wouldn't have made sense for him to wait to cast it until he left instead of using it to stop me from struggling in the first place. I'd come up with the idea on my own, and I didn't know if I liked the thought of that. Yes, I'd always had a bit of a... creative interpretation of the Empire's laws, but prostitution and an occasional bit of petty thievery were a far cry from joining an assassin's guild. Assassination probably paid better, of course, and it wasn't necessarily any more likely to land me in a prison cell, but I liked to think I was above murdering innocent people in cold blood.

Then again, if Rufio had managed to get the Dark Brotherhood called on him, he couldn't have been _that_ innocent. And if I didn't murder him, someone else would, so it wasn't like I'd be saving him by refusing take the contract. Even if I wanted to save him, sabotaging the Dark Brotherhood's plans to murder him seemed like a bad idea. Killing Rufio didn't mean I actually had to join the Dark Brotherhood, anyway. If I really didn't like the feeling, I'd just turn Lucien down and get on with my life. I didn't exactly have a shining reputation to uphold, either; going the entire rest of my life without committing a single crime wouldn't erase everything I'd already been arrested for. Whether I'd been pardoned or not, no guard was ever going to trust me again. But I didn't know if that justified me going along with what they expected of me and killing a random person out of curiosity...

I couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day, and I didn't say much for the rest of the journey to Cloud Ruler Temple. We still weren't any closer to getting the amulet back, but at least Martin would be safe surrounded by a small army of Blades, the official guards of Tamriel's emperor. I probably should have realized that my involvement with Martin and the amulet wouldn't end there, and I found myself traveling back to the Imperial City on my own to ask Baurus, the Blade that had survived the emperor's assassination, if he had found any information on the group that was behind said assassination. But not before I paid a visit to the Inn of Ill Omen.


	3. Welcome to the Family

A/N: And, here's chapter three. Thank you to everyone who read/reviewed/followed/favorited this last time, you guys are ridiculously awesome! You have no idea how much I appreciate it; hearing from people is always the highlight of my day. I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations. Most of the changes in this chapter were spiffying up some clunky bits of narrative and hopefully getting things to flow a bit better than they did originally. If anyone was actually curious about that. Anyway, I would love to hear any thoughts you may have on this chapter, as always. Feedback lets me know what I need to fix if I'm doing things wrong, and what to add more of if I'm doing things right.

Disclaimer: All I own here is Remy. Weird little thing that he is.

And Hypherion still betareads this for me.

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><p>I pressed myself into a corner of the room I'd rented for the night, trying to catch my breath and stop shaking as my mind replayed everything I'd just done. It had all been so easy... I'd slipped into Rufio's room, shut the door behind me, then slit his throat while he slept; he didn't even wake up until it was too late to do anything but bleed out onto his pillow. Then I'd just walked back up to my room like nothing happened. No one else in the inn even bothered to give me a second look. Things couldn't have gone any better, really. As long as I didn't spend too much time at the inn the next morning, they wouldn't even be able to question me about the murder, let alone convict me for it. To be honest, it felt... good. Like I'd accomplished some great, honorable task. And it scared me a little.<p>

I'd felt guilty over accidentally killing that guard in Kvatch, when there was nothing I could've done to avoid it, but intentionally murdering an old man in his sleep didn't bother me at all. Instead of feeling worse, like it should have, it felt a hundred times better. Gods, with Rufio I'd killed him just so I could join the Dark Brotherhood, where I'd end up killing more random strangers, and even that didn't bother me like it should have. If anything, it just made me curious about what would happen if I tried it again, if it would give me the same thrill or I'd stop feeling it after a while. I wasn't at all sure I liked the feeling, and I couldn't help but wonder if I'd made the right choice. I knew Martin and Jauffre wouldn't approve, but my employment with them wasn't near as reliable as what I could have with the Dark Brotherhood, and I didn't have much in the way of other job offers. Still shaking, I dragged myself over to my bedroll, but I kept thinking too much to fall asleep. I must have managed it at some point, though, because I woke up with a familiar set of robes sitting next to me.

"So, the deed is done," Lucien purred. "How do I know this? You will find that the Dark Brotherhood knows a great many things. For you are now part of the family."

"What if I don't want to be?" I asked, trying to unwrap myself from my blanket. I wished I knew how my sleeping self managed to wrap himself up in it so tightly; I could never manage it while I was awake.

"You've certainly gone to quite a lot of trouble on our behalf for someone who doesn't wish to join the Dark Brotherhood. What changed your mind?"

"I just killed an innocent man in his sleep, and I feel happy... That can't be right, can it? I committed a murder; I'm supposed to feel guilty, aren't I?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Lucien asked, chuckling in the most attractively evil way I'd ever heard when I looked at him like he was out of his mind. "If anything you've proven yourself to have a bright future ahead of you in our family. That bloodlust of yours will serve you, and Sithis, well."

"You really think so?" All the doubts I'd felt had vanished at the sound of his laugh, and I felt like I was under a charm spell again. I don't know what he must have thought of me, blushing and looking at him like a love-stricken puppy unable to do anything but blindly follow his master. There was nothing to be done for it, though; I was attracted to the man, and I just needed to find a way to live with that. Strange as it felt to be in that position, if I wanted that attraction to turn into anything real, I'd be the one pursuing Lucien, not the other way around. If I was even the sort of thing he'd go for in the first place. At that point, it was probably a bit late to try and pull off a graceful, seductive act. He'd never believe it. Not that I actually planned to pursue anything with him, of course. I had too many other things to think about. If I stopped thinking about them, I was sure the feelings would go away. I'd just need to find someone else to be attracted to.

"Of course. I do not say such things lightly."

"So... what do I do now?"

"Now, you embrace your fate," Lucien replied. "The slaying of Rufio was the signing of a covenant. The manner of execution, your signature. Rufio's blood, the ink. As a Speaker of the Black Hand, I directly oversee a particular group of family members. You will join that group, and fulfill any contracts given. In the city of Cheydinhal, you will find an abandoned house near the eastern wall. Enter the basement, and attempt to open the black door. You will be asked a question. Answer thusly: 'Sanguine, my Brother'. You will gain access to the sanctuary. Once inside, speak with Ocheeva. We must now take our leave of each other, you and I, for there is much work to be done. I'll be following... your progress. Welcome to the family." Then he stood up and headed for the door.

"Wait!" I said, catching hold of his sleeve. "Don't leave yet."

"And why not? I have things to do other than chatting with you, you know."

"That was... a lot to take in. I just want to be sure I understood everything properly. I go to Cheydinhal, find the abandoned house, go through the black door in the basement, and find Ocheeva, right?"

"Yes."

"And the passphrase is 'Sanguine, my Brother'?"

"That is correct. Will you let go of my robe now, or am I going to have to leave it with you?"

"Well, I wouldn't say 'no' to that, but it's not what I'm after. I just have one more question." I let go of his sleeve.

"And what would that be?"

"I'll get to see you again, won't I? This isn't the last contact we'll have with each other?"

Lucien looked at me strangely for a moment, then smiled. At least he seemed to find me amusing, if nothing else. "Well, that _is _an interesting thing to ask," he purred, "I don't normally make a habit of visiting recruits, but you did ask rather nicely... Perhaps I'll consider making an exception."

"You will?" That had gone better than I expected it to.

"Yes. I am nothing if not a man of my word. Continue fulfilling contracts for our family and, provided you refrain from doing anything stupid or getting yourself killed along the way, I may pay you a visit. Does that... satisfy you?"

"It does. Thank you."

"Excellent. You are now one with the Dark Brotherhood. Visit Ocheeva at the Cheydinhal Sanctuary and your new life will begin." Lucien turned himself invisible before trying to leave again, and left me and my thoughts shut in my room together when he was gone.

I just stared at the door for a while, trying to figure out what had gone wrong with me over the past few days. I must've looked like the worst kind of fool. Really, who could possibly have any respect for someone who went from feeling sick at the thought of enjoying an assassination to being completely happy and fine with it because someone they'd come into contact with all of two times complimented them for it? I knew I didn't respect myself at the moment. Gods, when had I turned into such a weak, soppy mess? I'd never let my opinion be swayed so easily before, and there was no reason why some assassin should be so damn special he could just walk into my life and start making a mess of my mind. I just hoped Lucien didn't ask me to jump off any bridges. If our past meetings were anything to go by, I'd probably do it without a second thought.

And yet, there I was, writing down exactly what I was supposed to do to complete my initiation into the Dark Brotherhood on a scrap of paper so I wouldn't forget. It was official: I was completely, utterly insane. Probably masochistic too, seeing as I was about to go out and work myself into more of a mess than I was already, as profitable as that mess was likely to be. Still, I had some sense of dignity left, somewhere. I'd go and talk to Baurus first, and the Dark Brotherhood would just have to wait until I was done with that. Saving the world was more important than earning a bit of extra coin, and it would be a nice way to prove that I still had plenty of free will left and wouldn't have had any problems turning Lucien's offer down if I'd really wanted to. I'd never let anyone take control of my life before, and I certainly wasn't about to start now. Or ever, for that matter.

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><p>Saying I was nervous would've been an understatement. I might have gotten an official pardon for my crimes in Bruma, but that pardon had happened in the castle dungeon, with only a few guards there to witness it. I didn't have any way of knowing how far news of that pardon had spread, if Bruma's guards had bothered spreading it at all, and without Martin and Jauffre there to bail me out, I didn't want to know what would happen if the Imperial City guards decided to arrest me again. Whatever it was, I was fairly certain it wouldn't be pleasant, so I decided to err on the side of caution and not get myself seen by any more people than I absolutely needed to. Which meant I'd had to find my way to Luther Broad's Boarding House in the most ridiculous, convoluted way possible to avoid running into any guards, who probably wouldn't have had any trouble figuring out who I was if they got a good look at me. I probably needed to look into finding a way to hide my hair as soon as possible; it made me stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd, but once I got it covered I'd fit in nicely, and if I could manage that my life would get a little bit easier.<p>

Somehow, I managed to reach the boarding house without any trouble, and once I got inside Baurus wasn't hard to locate. He shushed me when I tried to talk to him though, then pulled me down onto the stool next to him and told me I'd have to help him take care of a stalker he'd attracted before it was safe for him to tell me anything. The stalker wasn't hard to dispose of; Baurus was more than capable of handling himself in a fight, even without his armor, and the poor sod hadn't expected to be attacked from behind as well. Maybe joining the Dark Brotherhood wasn't as insane as I'd thought it was. It seemed like I'd be killing people no matter what I did, and the only real difference was the reasoning behind it.

After giving the corpse a quick search, we found a copy of the first volume of the _Mythic Dawn Commentaries_. That little discovery resulted in me spending the rest of the day sneaking around the city in search of the other three volumes that went along with it. I got a free copy of the second volume from a friend of the Blades at the Arcane University, and I'd managed to convince a Bosmer to reconsider joining the Mythic Dawn and give up his copy of the third volume after telling him they were the ones who murdered the emperor. Getting a copy of the fourth volume was more of a challenge, starting with another visit to the Imperial City sewer system with Baurus. Its inhabitants hadn't gotten any friendlier since the last time we'd been there.

I cringed as yet another rat decided to attack us, adding another layer to the sewer filth I was already covered in. Normally, I wasn't overly concerned with cleanliness, but being surrounded by piles of sludge that I had no interest in knowing the origins of and being attacked by creatures that had, for whatever reason, decided to call those sludge piles home would've had anyone fantasizing about a bath. Or at least a clean set of clothing. I just hoped that wandering the sewers wouldn't end up being part of _everything _I did. If things continued on the way they were going, I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep helping Martin without letting go of what was left of my sanity. After seeing how many of them called the sewers home, I already knew I'd never be able to eat mudcrab legs again.

"So, was this what you were expecting when you decided to join the Blades?" I asked, trying to distract us both from the muck we were standing knee-deep in.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, sewer exploration, pest control, studying elusive Daedric cults..."

"If you mean doing whatever it takes to protect the emperor, then yes, this is what I was expecting. I understand that you've sworn yourself to no such thing, but if you don't intend to take your mission seriously then you are free to leave," Baurus replied. "This is not a situation that should be taken lightly."

"Sorry... Shutting up now," I mumbled, wondering what I'd done to set him off. I supposed I could understand why he might not have liked me; I _had _failed at keeping the emperor safe from one assassin in a sealed room. He might not have liked himself much at the moment either, seeing as he'd also let the emperor down. I really couldn't blame him for not looking kindly on anything that came between him and protecting the emperor's son, whether it was an attempt at conversation during a mission or Mythic Dawn assassins. It was probably best to keep quiet, anyway.

"Thank you."

We walked on in silence for a while before finally reaching the door that was supposed to lead us to a room where we could meet with a member of the Mythic Dawn that had the fourth volume of the _Mythic Dawn Commentaries_. Baurus wanted to handle the meeting himself at first, but I managed to talk him into just watching in case things went wrong while I went to the meeting somehow. It wasn't the safest way to do things, but if whoever we were meeting with recognized him as a Blade, our entire plan would've been ruined. The chances of me getting recognized were a bit lower.

Granted, our plan fell through anyway when two other members of the Mythic Dawn noticed Baurus before I could get the book, but at least they decided to fight us instead of running away. Neither of us were in good condition after that, but we made it out alive, with the last book we needed. Of course, the books weren't going to be of any use to use until we figured out what anything in them actually meant, which was going take our contact at the Arcane University a couple days to work out, at least. Baurus had to get back to Cloud Ruler Temple as soon as we dropped the books off, so I was on my own until she figured out exactly what it was I needed to do. Instead of lounging about the city until that happened, I decided to make productive use of my spare time and make a trip to Cheydinhal.


	4. A Watery Grave

A/N: Hello again, and welcome to chapter four! Thank you to everybody who read and reviewed this last time; it's good to know that this rewrite has been a success thus far, and words cannot express how much I appreciate the awesome feedback you gave me! This chapter ended up expanding as a result of me adding a bit of characterization that wasn't there in the original, which is probably a good thing, but it resulted in this taking longer to finish than I'd planned. I apologize for the delay. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter and, as always, I appreciate feedback in all its forms!

Disclaimer: I still only own Remy. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise.

And Hypherion still betareads this.

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><p>When I saw the door at the end of the long, dimly lit hallway under the abandoned house in Cheydinhal, it was almost enough to make me turn around and leave. I'd never cared much for dark, cramped spaces, and there'd always been something about undead and skeletal things that just... didn't sit right with me. Seeing as the entrance to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary had combined both of those things into a door with a skull carved into it at the end of a dark, cramped hallway, the thought of going through it didn't appeal to me much. Still, I'd come too far to turn back because I didn't like the way the Dark Brotherhood decorated their home. It probably made sense for the entrance to an assassin's guild to look as foreboding as possible, really. If nothing else, it probably did wonders in driving unwelcome guests away. Besides, unless the Dark Brotherhood was secretly a guild of vampire necromancers, I didn't see any reason why the inside of the sanctuary wouldn't be well-lit and skeleton free.<p>

Once I'd reassured myself that I'd made the right choice in deciding to have a look at the sanctuary before judging it, taking a few steps forward and putting a hand on it to try and push it open was easy. And then the damn thing _talked_.

"What is the color of night?" it asked, with a booming, raspy voice that scared me halfway out of my skin.

Instead of saying the passphrase like I was supposed to, I made an odd little squeaky noise, took a step backward, tripped over my own foot, and fell on my ass. Yes, I'd been told that I'd need to answer a question before getting into the sanctuary, but I'd assumed that meant I'd be talking to someone behind the door, not the door itself. That would've been a handy thing to know beforehand, really. I couldn't have been the first recruit to assume there wouldn't be any magical talking doors in a dark, moldy basement... right? Unless I was, and there was something horribly wrong with my mind. In addition to everything else that seemed to be wrong with my mind lately, anyway.

"What is the color of night?" the door asked again, more slowly this time.

"Sanguine, my brother?" I said, hoping it focused more on the words themselves than the way I said them. If not, I was going to be sitting there for a long time...

"Welcome home," the door replied, swinging open surprisingly smoothly for a solid block of stone.

I took a few deep breaths to steady myself, then stood up, brushed myself off, and walked into the sanctuary. Once I'd stepped through it, the door snapped itself closed behind me, like it was shutting me off from my last chance to change my mind about joining the Dark Brotherhood.

I wasn't sure about the rest of the sanctuary, but the chamber I was standing in looked... cozy, for lack of a better word. It was better lit than the passage leading to it, and aside from a few blood red tapestries marked with black handprints on the walls, it wasn't decorated any differently than most homes. I didn't have any trouble at all imagining people living there. If I hadn't had a house of my own, I might have considered moving in myself. Just as I'd gotten around to wondering whether I should try and find Ocheeva on my own or wait for somebody to notice me and ask them for directions, an Argonian wearing a set of black leather armor walked into the room.

She blinked at me a couple of times, then smiled and came closer to me. "Greetings!" she said, wrapping her arms around me like I was her long-lost child. "I am Ocheeva, mistress of this sanctuary. May it serve as a place of comfort and security whenever the need arises. Lucien has told me all about you. I welcome you to the Dark Brotherhood!"

That hug felt better than it had any right to, and I felt more than a little sad when it ended. No one had touched me like that for years. "Thanks. I'm glad to be here."

"When you're ready for work, go and speak with Vicente Valtieri. He handles all assignments for new family members. But before you go, please accept this gift from your new family. A unique set of armor, lighter than normal leather and black as the Void."

"Really?" I asked, taking the bundle of armor she'd offered me. "This looks too nice for a recruit."

"Even our newest members are worthy of the Night Mother's protection. Now, I've kept you too long. Vicente is waiting. You'll find him in his quarters, at the end of the hall. Go now, my child, and may Sithis go with you."

"Right. May Sithis go with you, too." I hoped I'd managed to respond properly. All this 'Sithis' business was going to take some getting used to... Hopefully they'd forgive me if I slipped up every now and again. A bit of confusion had to be normal at first, right?

Eager as I was to get a good look at my new armor, I figured it was probably best to introduce myself to my new guildmates first, so I stuffed it into my pack and went looking for them. After exploring the rest of the sanctuary, I'd met a Breton by the name of Antoinetta Marie, an Orc named Gogron gro-Bolmog, a Khajiit, M'raaj-Dar, Ocheeva's brother, Teinaava, Telaendril, a Bosmer, and the sanctuary's pet rat, Schemer. Everyone was much friendlier than I'd expected a group of assassins to be. Everyone except for M'raaj-Dar, anyway; he didn't even wait until he'd told me his name before telling me I stank and he wanted nothing to do with me. Still, even with him glaring daggers at me every time we were in the same room, I didn't see any reason I couldn't start seeing everyone else as family someday. The only thing I had in common with most of them was an interest in murder and appreciation for Lucien (who had aged incredibly gracefully if he'd really trained Ocheeva and Teinaava when they were just hatchlings), but that seemed to be enough similarity for everyone else to get along. Once I'd met everyone else there was to meet, I went looking for Vicente so I could get to work.

"Ah, there you are. So good to finally meet you," Vicente said as I entered his room. "Warmest greetings! I trust you've already spoken with Ocheeva?"

"Yes, I have." I tried not to stare at him, but that was easier said than done. It isn't every day you see a Breton with blood-red eyes and a set of fangs that would put a saber cat to shame, after all. Then again, he probably wasn't a Breton so much as a vampire anymore, but that didn't make him any less unusual. Still, unless he was trying to drink my blood, it really wasn't my business whether he was a vampire or not. He seemed friendly enough, and I had no reason not to try and be friendly back. One member of the Dark Brotherhood hating me was more than enough, especially considering that I'd only officially joined less than an hour ago.

"I am Vicente Valtieri. I provide assignments for all new family members. Please, do not let my appearance... unnerve you. The needs and Tenets of the Dark Brotherhood come before my own needs as a vampire." Vicente smiled, and it would have been a lot less unnerving if it hadn't been for those fangs of his. "Now, if you're ready to get to work, I can provide you with your first contract."

"I'm Remy, though I suppose you already knew that... And I'm ready for that contract, if that's all right."

"Excellent." He flashed those fangs of his at me again. "Here is what you must do. Go to the Waterfront District of the Imperial City. There you will find a ship named the _Marie Elena_. Board the ship and find its captain, Gaston Tussaud. He'll be in his cabin. Eliminate Tussaud in any manner you see fit. The pirates have been moving a lot of cargo on board lately, so you may be able to smuggle yourself onboard in one of the packing crates. Oh, and one more thing. Get into the habit of asking your fellow family members about any current contract. Their insight may prove invaluable."

I just nodded, trying to make sense of everything he'd told me as best I could. Taking notes on what people wanted me to do while they were talking instead of scribbling down the bits and pieces I could remember later would have probably been a better way to do things, but the strange looks I'd have gotten for it just didn't seem worth it at the time. As long as I got the main idea, I didn't see how forgetting a few little details could hurt anything.

"Spill some blood for me, dear brother," Vicente called after me as I left the room.

"I'll try to. I just hope it isn't my own." I stopped, halfway out the door. "Is that just an expression, or do you actually want me to get some of Tussaud's blood for you?"

"It was only an expression. I have enough of a supply here to keep myself fed for quite some time." He chuckled, and I could almost feel him smiling again behind me. "Though I am most grateful for your consideration."

"Um... right. Thank you. Just trying to be a good family member..." I swallowed, then walked out of the room. My legs were screaming at me the entire way, but I managed to make it back to the sanctuary's main room without running. Vicente seemed like a perfectly nice man, and he hadn't made any attempts at eating me. Repaying that by running away in fear of him because I couldn't handle a set of fangs just wouldn't have been right.

I thought about heading straight back to the Imperial City, but it was already late in the evening and I hadn't had a good night's rest since leaving my prison cell. Staying the night at the sanctuary and getting an early start the next morning made much more sense. Before turning in for the night, I asked around about my contract, hoping I could at least get some information about the _Marie Elena_. Teinaava mentioned a balcony attached to Tussaud's quarters, but other than that I was on my own. Still, I felt like I knew enough to figure out a plan once I saw the ship for myself, so I flopped down on an empty bed in the living quarters and made myself comfortable.

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><p>I got up early the next morning, only staying in the living quarters long enough to gather my things and grab myself a loaf of bread for the road before heading up the stairs to the sanctuary's main room. I'd kept myself as quiet as possible so I didn't wake anyone else, but that plan got a hole punched in it when the first thing I saw when I opened the door was a skeleton staring into my soul with its empty eye sockets. I just stood there for a moment, like someone had frozen my feet to the floor, then the skeleton clacked its teeth at me and I screamed and slammed the door shut in its face. I sank to the floor, leaning against the door to keep that thrice-damned thing from getting in, and I was surprised when only Antoinetta wandered up the stairs to investigate instead of the entire sanctuary.<p>

"What's wrong?" she asked. "You've gone white as a sheet. Well, I suppose really light blue would be more accurate, but there's no expression for that."

"You... seem to have a slight undead problem."

"What are you talking about? The only undead thing here is our Dark Guardian, and I doubt anything else could've found its way in. Are you sure you aren't seeing things?"

"You mean that thing is supposed to be in here?"

"Of course he is, silly! We wouldn't let just any skeleton go shambling about our home."

"I'm sorry I woke you, then." I stood up and took a step away from the door. Even if the Dark Guardian hadn't been friendly, it didn't seem too interested in breaking in. "I just wasn't expecting to see that first thing in the morning."

"It's all right. Everyone's afraid of something; I'd have done the same thing if a jester wandered in. Just try to keep it down next time, will you?"

"Will do. How did everyone else manage to sleep through that, though? I was afraid I'd woken the whole sanctuary."

"Telaendril left late last night, and everyone else sleeps like a rock. They have to, if they want to get any sleep with Gogron snoring the way he does." Antoinetta shrugged. "What are you doing up so early, anyway?"

"I'm leaving for the Imperial City. I want to make sure I get there in time to get a good look at that ship before nightfall, so I figured it would be best to get an early start, before the roads get too crowded."

"Good luck then, brother! I hope you don't get killed. I mean, um... well, you know!"

"I'll try not to," I replied, then had another try at leaving the sanctuary.

Luckily, the Dark Guardian wasn't there when I opened the door again, and I managed to make it out into Cheydinhal without making any more noise. Nice as my new armor was, I figured it was probably best to just put my hood on until I needed the rest of it. In the four years I'd spent in the Imperial City, I'd never seen an adventurer wearing a set of pitch black leather armor; walking through the city wearing it would've made me look even more out of place than usual. I needed to stop by the Arcane University to see if the _Mythic Dawn Commentaries _were decoded yet, after all, and I didn't need anyone asking questions about why I'd decided to dress myself so strangely.

I didn't run into any trouble on my way back to the Imperial City, and when I got to the Arcane University they'd figured out where the Mythic Dawn hid directions to their shrine. I found the tomb it was etched into and got its location marked down just before the sunbeam lighting it up moved out of place, and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find a way to sneak myself onto the _Marie Elena_.

The ship's decks were heavily guarded, so I wouldn't be getting in that way unless I wanted to do it in pieces. The crates Vicente had mentioned seemed like a safer bet. Once I got a good look at them, I didn't see any reason I couldn't squeeze myself into one, but I had no idea how long I'd need to spend inside it waiting for someone to carry me onto the ship. It didn't look like it would be a comfortable journey, either, judging by the way the crew handled their cargo.

In the end, the balcony Teinaava pointed out looked like my most appealing option. It looked like it was close enough to the docks for me to jump to, if I was lucky. Of course, if I _wasn't _lucky I'd end up falling into Lake Rumare and making a splash someone was bound to notice, which would require a bit of explaining on my part. Though even if it came to that, I was almost certain I'd serviced the ship's first mate a few times in the past, after I got a good look at her. If she was who I thought she was, I didn't think I'd have much trouble convincing her I'd meant no harm if jumping to the balcony didn't work out the way I planned. If I got caught trying to sneak onto the ship another way, she probably wouldn't have been as easy to persuade.

No matter how I decided to get myself onto the ship, I was going to have to wait until nightfall. I managed to kill some time by making a trip to the market district to get my weapons and armor patched up, but I spent most of my evening in my shack, trying to figure out how exactly my Dark Brotherhood armor was supposed to work. After what felt like hours of fiddling with the ridiculous number of intricate little fastenings on every last one of its pieces, I was fairly certain I'd gotten it right. Or at least, right enough, which left me questioning how it fit me so perfectly. Almost _too _perfectly, really; it molded itself to my body tightly enough that I couldn't find a way to fit a set of undergarments underneath it. Or at least, there wasn't room for the kind that aren't supposed to get ripped off you right away. And those wouldn't have been very comfortable to go sneaking around the Waterfront in.

In spite of that minor setback, the time I spent getting the armor on was more than worth the effort when I found a good spot to make my jump from. It was quieter and a lot less bulky than my Kvatch cuirass, and it let me get lost in the shadows better than I could have dreamed of without it. Once I was certain none of Tussaud's crew were watching me, I gave myself the best running start I could and hurled myself at his balcony. After spending more time in the air than I would have liked, I caught hold of the railing and hauled myself up. The lock on his door wasn't easy to pick, but I got it open after a few tries, and the door itself opened and shut more quietly than I dared to hope. Tussaud himself was snoring away on his bed, like he didn't have a care in the world.

I made it to the side of his bed without him so much as stirring, and I'd just gotten my dagger into place to slit his throat when he flipped himself over. Instead of killing him, I just nicked him a little, and he didn't look too pleased with me when that woke him up. He put up a good fight, and I'd have plenty of bruises to show for it the next morning, but I had a weapon and he didn't. All I had to do was get a couple good stabs in, and he was bleeding out on his floor. Still, we'd probably made enough noise to let every member of his crew know something was wrong.

Sure enough, just as I'd finished pocketing a pricey-looking amulet he wore and prying a few rings off his fingers, someone started banging on the door. I wasn't particularly eager to find out who it was, so I didn't waste any time getting myself back onto the balcony and into Lake Rumare. From there, I was only a quick swim to shore and a dash to the Waterfront's residential area away from home. When I was safe inside my shack, with my door locked behind me, I only waited long enough to store the jewelry I'd taken from Tussaud's corpse under a loose floorboard before getting a fire going. I tried to get my armor off once I'd warmed and dried myself, but after a lengthy struggle just to get my boots off I decided to call it a night and try again in the morning. If all else failed, I could just ask for help back at the sanctuary, and once I'd gotten myself out of it once I didn't think I'd have any trouble doing it again.


	5. Dawn Is Breaking

A/N: And here's the rewrite of chapter five! Thank you to everybody that read this last time, and to Kako Koritsi for reviewing; you guys are awesome! Anyway, this was arguably one of the better chapters in the original version of this fanfic, so aside from being converted into first-person POV, the only major changes here are a few tweaks to the dialogue so it flows a bit better in places. I hope that you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it and, as always, any and all feedback is more than welcome and greatly appreciated!

Disclaimer: Remy is mine, pretty much nothing else is.

And Hypherion still betareads this for me.

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><p>After what felt like only a few moments of sleep, someone gave my ear a good flick and had me wide awake again. Wondering if I'd left my door unlocked and some lost drunk or beggar had wandered in, I turned myself over and forced my eyes open. When my vision cleared enough for me to make out a set of black robes with an Imperial nose standing over me, I wasn't sure I'd woken up at all. Then again, if I <em>was <em>still dreaming Lucien would've woken me with something nicer than a flick on the ear, and we both would have been wearing a bit less clothing. I decided I was awake, after all. What I'd done to provoke him into treating my poor ear like that when I hadn't so much as seen him in a few days was beyond me, though.

"What'd you do that for?" I asked, sitting up as I rubbed my ear to try and get rid of some of the stinging. "That _hurt_; couldn't you have flicked something less sensitive?"

"You refused to respond to less violent attempts at waking you, and I have better things to do with my time than watch you sleep," Lucien replied. It was hard to tell for certain in the dim light, but it looked like he was smirking under that hood of his. It seemed like the sort of thing he'd do. "I also felt that you deserved some form of reprimand after your... questionable choice in ship-boarding methods."

"How'd you know about that? I can't have killed the man more than a few hours ago."

"I had some business to take care of in the area, and I happened to witness your attempt to fly. I'd ask what the reasoning behind it was, but that would involve dignifying your actions with the assumption that you'd actually planned them."

I shrugged. "It seemed like the best way to get where I needed to be. You'd have thought I'd done brilliantly if you hadn't seen that. You didn't really follow me back here just to give me a scolding, did you? That seems a bit... excessive."

"I was under the impression that you _wanted _me to check in on you from time to time. You seemed to find my company rather desirable when last we spoke. If my presence here is unwanted, however, I have no objection to leaving..."

"Well, you already went to the trouble of breaking into my house and waking me up, and I'm not likely to fall asleep again anytime soon, so you might as well stay for a while. Not sure why you couldn't have taken the hood off first, though. Getting people used to waking up with that standing over them seems like a great way to get them killed. Unless that's the point..."

"If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have had a chance to wake up in the first place," Lucien scoffed. "How you managed to sleep at all without removing your armor first, however, is another matter entirely. Were you really too exhausted to bother with taking proper care of your equipment?"

"I've slept in worse. And I couldn't figure out how to take it off." I tugged at one of the buckles on my armor. "This is the sort of thing that should really come with instructions."

"I don't remember it being _that _difficult to work out. It isn't the armor's fault that you're incapable of dressing yourself."

"I got it on just fine; it's the undressing part I had trouble with." I laughed. "Which is a bit ironic, considering what I used to do for a living... I must be losing my touch."

"Dare I ask what you're referring to?"

"You mean you don't know? I'd have thought you'd take the time to do some form of background check before letting someone in on all the Dark Brotherhood's secrets... What if a guard got in?"

"Our screening process for new recruits is taken care of by the Night Mother herself. She would not recommend that we recruit anyone who posed a serious threat to our organization, as she would not stand to gain anything from it. Though I certainly wouldn't object to hearing the story behind why you decided it was a good idea to slaughter a guard while surrounded by witnesses."

"I could tell you, but it doesn't have anything to do with what I was doing before all this. Not directly, anyway. It's also a bit of a long story... And I'd probably sound crazy."

"We have time. And I assure you, you would find it difficult to appear any more crazy than you already do."

"I'm glad you have so much faith in me..." I sighed. I really needed to learn to keep my mouth shut about things. "Could you at least help me get this armor off, first? It's getting a bit uncomfortable."

"I suppose I can help you undress yourself, so long as you don't try to make a habit of this. If this is some sort of attempt to get me into bed with you, however, I'm afraid you'll need to try harder than that."

"Thank you," I said, hauling myself off my bed. "I think I might have to take that last bit as a challenge now, if it's all the same to you."

"I wish you the best of luck, then," Lucien purred, getting started on undoing all the buckles and ties that held my armor together. "You're going to need it."

I tried to help at first, but after he swatted my hands out of the way for what felt like the hundredth time I just held still and let him take care of it for me. I was able to get a pretty good idea of how everything worked by watching him, if nothing else. As nice as it was to be undressed by someone I was actually attracted to, this wasn't exactly the context I'd have wanted it to happen in. It felt more like I was a child who'd gotten himself tangled in his mother's knitting supplies than anything else, which was more than humiliating enough to turn me off the thought of trying it again later. Lucien didn't have anything to worry about on that front.

Still, at least it seemed like there was a possibility of things taking a turn for the romantic between us, if I played my cards right. He'd actually flirted with me, if I wasn't mistaken, and I hadn't made a complete fool of myself this time around. Aside from getting myself stuck in my armor, of course, but things were still going better than the last time we'd talked. All things considered, I was having a fairly good night.

"You could have informed me that you decided against wearing undergarments, you know," Lucien dryly remarked. So much for that line of thought.

"Sorry about that." I wrapped my blanket around myself, inwardly thanking the gods I'd had my bed so close at hand. "Are you really trying to say that you _can _get a set of undergarments to fit under the armor? Because I couldn't get that to work when I tried. It's too damn tight...

"I'm sure someone has managed it at one point or another. Though I will admit that that it's somewhat unlikely."

"Whose idea was it to design something that molds itself to your ass so well, anyway? It doesn't look very threatening."

"Only Sithis and the Night Mother themselves would know the answer to that. Were I in your position, however, the fit of my armor would be the least of my concerns. I'd be more interested in finding out how in Sithis' name pink was my natural hair color."

"Finding out how the story behind the armor's probably easier. Speaking of stories, do you still want to know what happened with the Kvatch guard, or did I mentally scar you out of it?"

Lucien chuckled. "It would take more than that to mentally scar me. Let's hear this story of yours."

"Well, I was enjoying an extended stay in the Imperial City prison on the night the emperor was assassinated, and his escape route happened to lead directly through my cell. For some reason he decided that I was the best-qualified person available to stop Mehrunes Dagon from taking over the world, and that I needed to track down some illegitimate son of his so that he could get the Dragonfires relit and everyone could go on with their lives. While I was on my way to find him, I ended up having to close the Oblivion gate that opened outside Kvatch and decided I'd be nice and help the guards exterminate any Daedra left in the city afterwards. Of course, one of them had to go and run between me and a Scamp I was fighting, and I accidentally killed him."

"You killed an innocent guardsman... because he got in the way of your trying to save the world?"

"No, I killed him because he lacked basic self-preservation instincts. I just happened to be trying to save the world when it happened."

"And you expect me to believe that the emperor randomly decided to leave the fate of the world in the hands of a prisoner?"

"Yes?"

"What exactly were you in there for? It can't have been murder, or I'd have recruited you before you made it to Kvatch."

"Actually, it was murder. And necrophilia. Nine counts of each. Not that I actually did any of it, but guards aren't particularly fond of asking questions and I already had a bit of a criminal history" I shrugged. Whether he believed me or not, Lucien wasn't in any position to judge me for anything I'd done. "Apparently prostitution and theft have a tendency to lead to necrophilia and murder. They aren't so different, really."

"You realize that this adds no credibility to anything you've said thus far."

"I told you it would sound crazy. Don't you think that if I was going to lie, I'd do it just a little bit better?"

"If you say so. How did your world-saving mission work out, then?"

"Not so well... In fact, I should probably be getting back to that fairly soon. The Mythic Dawn aren't going to defeat themselves, after all."

"I'll leave you to that, then," Lucien said, placing a hand on my doorknob. Why whoever had furnished my home had decided to put my bed so close to the door, I'd never know, but at that moment I was fairly certain I hated them for it.

I watched him turn the doorknob, worried I'd never see him again after that. He'd probably decided I was a lunatic and wanted to leave in case it was contagious. Not that I blamed him for it; I was just disappointed I'd ruined such a promising night because I didn't know when to shut up. I really needed to learn how to sound like a normal, sane person. Or stop ending up in odd situations. Either one would've worked, really.

I felt a bit better when Lucien added, "I expect a report on your progress in this world-saving business of yours when next we meet. If these Oblivion gates continue to open, the Dark Brotherhood will be affected as much as anyone else," before turning invisible and letting himself out.

Happy that I knew I'd at least get to see him again, I settled down for another few hours of sleep. If traveling to Dagon's shrine and finding the Amulet of Kings were anything like the last few tasks I'd carried out, I was going to need it.

I set off for Dagon's shrine as soon as I woke up the next morning. Since the shortest route there led by Cheydinhal, I stopped by the sanctuary to pick up my reward for killing Tussaud and some information on my next contract. My horse needed a bit of a breather, anyway, and I had no idea when I'd be in the area again, so it seemed like a good idea. Luckily for me, Baenlin, the old Bosmer I was supposed to kill next, lived in Bruma, so I'd be able to arrange a little 'accident' for him when I brought the amulet to Martin at Cloud Ruler Temple. Everything went perfectly until I made it to the caverns that I hoped were home to Dagon's shrine and ran straight into a mess.

I managed to convince a couple members of the Mythic Dawn that I wanted to join up with them, but getting into the shrine that way would have meant giving up all my weapons, armor, healing potions, and lockpicks. Which seemed like a bad idea, seeing as they probably wouldn't take too kindly to me running off with the Amulet of Kings once I got into the shrine. Strange as it sounded, fighting my way seemed like the safest option I had. At least I'd learned that the amulet was with their leader, Mankar Camoran, in the shrine's main chamber before things came to that.

Aside from the two guards I had to face head-on to get into the shrine, I was able to sneak past or quietly dispose of everyone else I met on my way to its main chamber. Once I got there, I had a clear view of Camoran and the rest of his followers gathered around a giant statue of Mehrunes Dagon. If I'd had a bow on me, I might've taken a shot at him, but I hadn't had any real use for one since moving to Cyrodiil. Even if I _had _brought a bow with me, the only real practice I'd had with one was trying to catch a few rabbits on my parents' farm; I'd probably have missed him, anyway. Before I had a chance to think of anything else, he opened some sort of portal and disappeared, taking the Amulet of Kings with him. The only thing left in the room that looked the least bit promising was a big, magical-looking book he'd been reading from before opening his portal. I figured it was better than nothing, so I grabbed it and ran.

Once I'd taken the book off its pedestal, the statue of Dagon collapsed, which bought me enough time to get out of the chamber before the rest of the Mythic Dawn could figure out what was happening. I'd have been proud of myself if the statue hadn't crushed an Argonian prisoner who'd been tied up beneath it. Still, as worrisome as my tendency to accidentally murder people I was trying to help was, I was more concerned with finding my way out of the caverns. It didn't take me long to realize that there were just as many Mythic Dawn members outside the main chamber as in it, which meant shoving the book under my robes, walking slowly, and keeping to the shadows instead of running the whole way. I managed to sneak out _somehow_, and once I'd found my horse and put a few miles between me and the shrine, I let myself relax a bit. I may have lost the Amulet of Kings, but I was fairly certain I'd stolen something equally important from the Mythic Dawn before they could do any more harm. With any luck, the book would have something in it that Martin and the Blades could use to come up with a new plan to get the amulet back. Or at least, I hoped so. If not, the world was doomed, and dooming the world was not something I wanted to be responsible for.

I made it to Bruma in good time, all things considered, and while I probably could've reached Cloud Ruler Temple before nightfall, I wasn't exactly looking forward to telling Martin I'd lost the amulet. I left my horse at the stables, and decided I'd stay the night at an inn and give him the news in the morning. As for Baenlin, I didn't see any harm in letting him live another day. At the moment, all I wanted to do was get drunk off my ass and pass out in what I hoped would by my room.


	6. Accidents Happen

A/N: And here we are at chapter six. Thank you to Kako Koritsi and Alazais Henderson for reviewing last time; you guys are awesome, and words cannot describe how much I appreciate your continued support! Anyway, this is technically chapter the rewrite of chapter six and chapter seven, because they both had a lot of stuff that really didn't need to be in there in the form of quests that had no bearing on the main plot and didn't actually go anywhere. So, they've both been heavily trimmed down and combined here in the interest of keeping things moving at a reasonable rate. I hope that you enjoy the chapter and, as always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!

Disclaimer: Remy is mine, just about everything else isn't.

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><p>As much as I wanted to put it off until morning, I left the inn and started up the path to Cloud Ruler Temple before I'd even finished my first drink. On foot, because my horse had earned a good night's rest and I didn't like the thought of it slipping and sending us both tumbling down the mountainside. The trip was cold, dark, and generally unpleasant, but I felt too damn guilty for my stay at the inn to have been any better. Giving people bad news was like ripping off a bandage: the faster I got it over with, the less it was going to hurt. And then Martin greeted me at the door, and I wondered if I wasn't better off running back the way I came and finding a nice cave to hide in for the rest of my life.<p>

"Ah, you're back. I told Jauffre not to worry," he said, smiling at me like my arrival was the highlight of his day. Which I suppose it would have been, if I'd actually had the amulet with me, but seeing as I didn't, it just made things that much worse.

"Oh... You did?" I tried to look anywhere but his face. Things would be easier that way.

"I can see you have bad news. You didn't recover the amulet, did you?"

"Not exactly... It's on the other side of some kind of portal now. I did find you this book, though," I said, digging Camoran's book out of my pack. "I can't read it, but it looks important."

"By the Nine! Such a thing is dangerous even to handle!" Martin snatched it out of my hands before I could so much as blink.

"Sorry... You could've just asked for it, you know. I don't know what use I'd have for it."

Martin sighed. "Forgive me. You were right to bring it. But the Mysterium Xarxes has brought ruin upon better men than the both of us. It's safer in my hands; I know some ways to protect myself from its evil power."

"So, can we use the Mysterium... whatever-it-is to find Camoran?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I suspect that the secret of how to open a portal to Camoran's Paradise lies within these pages. But I will need time. Tampering with dark secrets, even just reading them, can be very dangerous. I'll have to proceed carefully. In the meantime, you should speak to Jauffre. He was concerned about reports of spies in Bruma."

"That's it, then?" Anger, I could have dealt with, but Martin didn't even seem annoyed with me. It had me more than a little bit nervous.

"What were you expecting?"

"You're not going to shout at me? Call me an idiot? Tell me I've ruined our chances of ending this mess in a timely fashion? Have me beaten? Or executed? ...Give me a stern talking-to while frowning at me?"

"No... Though I suppose I could, if you want me to."

"Why not? I might have just lost us the world..."

"Because Dagon hasn't succeeded in his invasion yet, and if you possess even the slightest shred of goodness within you, I have no doubt that there's nothing I could do to you that you have yet to do to yourself. Aside from executing you, obviously. And I think you'll be more useful alive than dead."

"What if I was a zombie? I could chew on Dagon's ankles as a distraction."

Martin smiled. "You'd start to stink after a while. And there's no guarantee you won't have rotted by the time Dagon actually enters this world."

"Fair enough." I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding in. For a priest, Martin was awfully accepting and easy to talk to. Not like the ones who'd throw you out of their chapel and tell you to repent when the altars didn't work for you. "I guess it's off to Jauffre, then."

"Maybe you'll get that stern talking-to of yours from him."

"But I wanted _you _to give me the stern talking-to. You're prettier, and you have nicer hair..."

"Just go," Martin replied, shaking his head. "Before I change my mind about that zombie offer of yours."

"All right." I opened the door and let myself out of the temple. Jauffre wasn't going to find himself, after all.

When I found him, Jauffre wanted me to look into some strangers that had been poking around by a Runestone near the temple. I wasn't his first choice for the job, but he wanted to keep as many guards around Martin as possible, and they were less likely to recognize me than an actual Blade. It seemed simple enough, once he'd marked the Runestone on my map, but I wouldn't get a chance at stopping them until the next evening. By that point it was too late for finding my way back to Bruma to make any sense, so, much as I hated the thought of wasting gold on a room I didn't use, I decided to spend the night at the temple. A cozy bedroll by the fire was nicer than a cold bed, anyway.

I left the temple late the next afternoon, and spent the next few hours watching the Runestone. Eventually, a pair of travelers showed up, and decided to attack me before I could ask any questions. They weren't hard to kill, but they hadn't given me anything to bring back to Jauffre, either, so I decided to see if I couldn't find the house the key I'd found on one of their corpses belonged to. After a bit of awkward fumbling with several wrong doors, a guard took pity on me and showed me where I needed to go. He was also nice enough to point out who lived where along the way, and Baenlin's house just happened to be on the same street he walked me down. Carrying out my contract had just gotten easier.

The house that the Mythic Dawn spies had been staying in wasn't anything special, once I got inside and had a look around. The only interesting thing I could find was a trapdoor, which led to a basement that was just as shockingly normal as the house's main floor. There wasn't even a miniature daedric shrine. I found a few copies of the _Mythic Dawn Commentaries _after poking around a little, as well as a letter with a fancy wax seal. The books weren't anything new, but the letter seemed to be a copy of the Mythic Dawn's plans. They'd gotten it into their heads that I was a major threat to them, somehow, which would have been flattering if I wasn't so worried about what would happen if they actually succeeded in their plans to open up multiple Oblivion gates outside Bruma. Closing one had been tricky enough, and if things went according to their plan, there'd be at least three to worry about. The basement also had a door that opened into a set of caverns that led outside the city, which would probably need to get sealed off so the Mythic Dawn couldn't get any more use out of them.

Cloud Ruler Temple wasn't far from the entrance to the caverns, but unless I wanted to spend an extra day in Bruma, reporting back to Jauffre was going to have to wait until after I'd taken care of Baenlin. There was probably another task waiting for me back at the temple, and I had no way of knowing where it would take me. Luckily for me, Bruma was more of a Nord city than an Imperial one, and most of its houses had a cellar door outside, if you knew where to look. Baenlin's house had a particularly large one, which saved me the trouble of trying to sneak in through the front door. Once I was inside, all I had to do was sneak upstairs, squeeze myself into a crawlspace, and loosen a set of ties holding up a stuffed Minotaur head over his reading chair. The thumpy, squelching sound it made when it landed was more than enough for me to be sure that Baenlin had read his last book. I tried to get a look at his body when I sneaked back to the cellar, but all I could see was the Minotaur head, some chair splinters, and one of his feet. It was almost disappointing, really. I'd expected more of a mess.

When I made it back to Cloud Ruler Temple, I only stopped long enough to drop off the plans I'd found with Jauffre and tell him about the caverns before going to see if Martin had learned anything from the Mysterium Xarxes. I found him sitting at a table in a corner, hunched over the book like he didn't want anyone else to get a look at it.

"So," I said, taking a seat next to him. "Have you made any sense of this yet?"

"Partially. I've deciphered part of the ritual needed to open a portal to Camoran's Paradise. The Xarxes mentions four items needed for the ritual, but so far I have only deciphered one of them: the 'blood of a Daedra Lord'. In fact, daedric artifacts are known to be formed from the essence of a Daedric Lord, from whence they derive their great power. Not an easy thing to come by, obviously, but we will need a daedric artifact."

"And I take it I'm the one who will be finding this artifact?"

"Now you're catching on."

"All right, then. How exactly am I supposed to go about getting one?" I wasn't sure why I was the only person who got sent out to collect things, but I supposed it was only fair after I'd lost us the amulet. I wasn't in much of a position to say 'no' if I'd wanted to.

"The only way to obtain a daedric artifact is through the cults devoted to each of the Daedric Lords. Remember, the Mysterium Xarxes ritual will consume the physical form of the artifact in order to release its daedric power, so don't bring me anything you aren't prepared to lose," Martin replied. "Hopefully I've made some progress in deciphering the rest of the ritual by the time you return."

"Good luck with that, then." I wasn't crazy enough to think that tracking down a daedric artifact would be fun, but it had to be better than decoding evil books.

I decided it was best to leave before anyone thought of something else I needed to do, so I rented myself a room in Bruma for the night. I knew I probably shouldn't have been spending so much time on them, but I wasn't sure how I'd have managed without the pay from my Dark Brotherhood contracts. I wasn't getting any septims out of helping Martin, and I had to keep myself fed and housed somehow.

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><p>Cheydinhal seemed like as good a place as any to start my search for daedric shrines, so I went there first thing the next morning. The fact that it gave me a chance to pick up my reward for assassinating Baenlin was just icing on the sweetroll. Speaking of which, it had been far too long since I'd had one of the delightful little pastries; I'd have to pick a few up for myself as a reward once all this Oblivion business was over with.<p>

Asking around about daedric shrines got me more strange looks than anything else, but a few people had heard something about a strange door in the middle of the Niben Bay, which sounded daedric enough to warrant investigating. It wasn't as though I had any better ideas. With that taken care of, I let myself into the abandoned house and headed for the sanctuary. Once my eyes had a chance to adjust to the dim lighting, I made my way down to Vicente's chamber, trying to keep as much distance between me and the Dark Guardian as possible. I just didn't trust the thing; it was too terrifying for me to let my guard down around it. Why the Dark Brotherhood even needed a guard in the first place was beyond me, and why they couldn't have chosen something with a bit more meat on its bones was even more confusing.

"So, the accident has been staged, and Baenlin lies dead. Well done!" Vicente said, as soon as I stepped into the room. Before I could so much as say 'hello', he flashed his fangs at me in what was probably supposed to be a friendly smile, and was standing in front of me with a dagger and a bag of septims before I even noticed he'd stood up. "You have more than earned your reward and bonus."

"Um... thanks," I said, pocketing the septims and strapping the dagger to my belt. Vicente being a vampire was still a bit unnerving, but he was just too... friendly for me to genuinely be afraid of him like I was the first time we'd met. I actually managed to smile back at him this time. "Do you have anyone else for me to take care of?"

"As always, you fail to disappoint me. It just so happens that I have another contract available, one that requires an expert in infiltration. Your target is a Dark Elf named Valen Dreth. He thinks he is safe within the walls of the Imperial Prison. He is tragically mistaken."

"Wait a moment," I said, not sure I'd heard him right. "I'm supposed to find a way into _the _Imperial Prison? The same prison that no one's broken out of in over forty years?" Well, less than forty days was probably a more accurate count after the Mythic Dawn business that had started all this madness, but I wasn't sure that counted. I hadn't escaped so much as wandered out. If it weren't for the emperor's secret passage, I'd have still been in my cell. Or dead.

"You underestimate yourself, dear brother. A prisoner recently escaped from the prison, using a set of secret tunnels connected to the Imperial City's sewer system. It's a perfect way inside. Just outside of the Imperial Prison is a grating that leads to the sewers. It has recently been tightly locked, but I will provide a key. It should be easy enough to locate Dreth in his small cell. Besides, I think you know the way, hmm?" Vicente paired the question with a chuckle and a knowing look.

"So you know about that... Could've just said so in the first place and saved me the trouble of making a fool of myself."

"Ah, but that wouldn't have been nearly as fun, now would it? For me, anyway. Valen Dreth has been imprisoned for many years. His tongue is sharp, but his body is limp and frail. He will provide an easy, pleasurable kill. You will receive a bonus if you fulfill the contract without killing any of the prison guards. Now go, and may the Night Mother go with you."

"I'll get right on that, then. Though I'm not sure I agree with you on the sharp-tongued bit. Plenty of people have come up with worse insults for me." I replied, making my way back to the outside world. Killing Dreth in itself wasn't going to be difficult, but actually getting to that point was going to take some work. The sewers were bad enough when they weren't crawling with guards. I'd find a way, though. If I could make it out of the Imperial Prison armed with nothing but tattered clothing and a borrowed shortsword, there was no reason I couldn't get back in with my current gear.

I thought about looking into the strange door I'd heard about first, but since I'd have to follow the road around the Imperial City to get there, trying to assassinate Dreth on the way there just seemed to make more sense. Besides, if what he'd said about getting out of prison soon the last time we'd spoken was true, I didn't have any time to lose.

It wasn't quite dark yet when I got to the Imperial City, so I stopped by my shack to drop off most of the septims I'd made off my Baenlin contract. I was running out of space under my floorboard, but it was nice to have something put aside for the future. If my contracts kept paying so well, I'd be able to afford some nice wall hangings. Maybe a rug, too, and less splintery furniture - sitting on either of the chairs in front of my fireplace without a sturdy set of pants never ended well. My lock probably needed replacing, too; it stuck so often that picking it was a more reliable way of getting it open than my key.

It took a while to find the sewer grate where everything had started, but once I'd stepped through it and into the sewers I knew exactly where I was going. The way back to my cell was marked with guards carrying torches, and they made enough noise stomping around in their heavy armor for me to get past them without much effort, so long as I kept to the shadows.

Once I was in my cell, all I had to do was wait for Dreth to hurl insults at the guard outside his cell long enough for the guard to abandon his post to get a clear shot at killing him. Letting myself out of my cell and into the prison itself was as simple as opening the door, since no one had bothered to lock it, and then the only thing left between me and Dreth was the door to his cell. I stopped before picking his lock, and just looked at him for a moment. I realized how easily our fates could have been reversed, and, for a heartbeat, I almost felt sorry for him. Then he threw a stale hunk of bread at me through the bars, and I realized it was probably a miracle no one had called the Dark Brotherhood on his behalf sooner.

"What happened to getting out of here soon?" I asked, brushing as many bread crumbs off my armor as I could.

"Wait, I know you... You... you're the one! That day the Emperor was killed! They went through your cell! You lucky bastard! But... you came back? Come on, you've got to help me! Let old Valen out of this cell! You've got your freedom, now give me mine! What do you say, huh? Come on, friend!" Dreth pleaded, grinning like he'd bet on a winning combatant in the Arena when I went to work on getting his lock open.

Once the final tumbler fell into place, I stood and opened his door. Dreth kept smiling at me until I unsheathed my dagger and got him backed into a corner. He wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get his throat slit right on my first try, and we were both covered in his blood by the time he finished bleeding out. By the time I'd made it back through the sewers and out into the Waterfront, the blood had gone all dry and sticky, and by the time I got it all scrubbed off of myself I felt more like I'd scraped off my own skin. I needed to find a cleaner way to carry out assassinations when I couldn't catch my target sleeping.


	7. Blood of the Daedra

A/N: Hello again, everyone, and welcome to the revised chapter 7! Thank you to Kako Koritsi, Alazais Henderson, and the guest Captain for reviewing last time; as always, you guys are awesome beyond words! Anyway, the Shivering Isles questline is beyond glossed over here, because, while it is awesome, writing it out in full would have completely killed the pacing of this fanfic, and wouldn't have contributed much to its overall storyline. And as far as the creation of Daedric artifacts goes, I have no idea how it's actually supposed to work, but this seemed like the most Remy-esque way of doing things. As far as revisions go, the only changes of note here were fixing up a few clunky bits of dialogue. I hope that this chapter is to your liking, and I would be more than grateful for any and all feedback you would be willing to give me on it!

Disclaimer: Remy is still pretty much the only thing I own here. He's enough of a handful that I probably wouldn't want the rest, anyway.

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><p>After a trip home for a nice, long nap, I figured it was as good a time as any to have a look at the strange door in the Niben Bay. I got as good a look at myself as I could with my shiniest pewter plate to make sure I really had washed all of Dreth's blood off myself, double checked that I'd put my loose floorboard back into place, and headed out the door. I thought about stopping by the Market District on my way out of the city, at least to find myself a bit of breakfast, but it was barely dawn and I didn't like the thought of standing around for an hour or two waiting for a shop to open. I'd been too late collecting the amulet for Martin already; I didn't want to let him down again just because I was hungry. I was fairly certain I'd be able to grab <em>something<em> out of a farmer's field somewhere down the road, anyway.

A few hours and a stolen watermelon later, I had my horse stabled in Bravil, with a nice bag of septims to pay for whatever it needed while I was away. If the strange door was anything like the Oblivion gate at Kvatch, I'd probably just overpaid a stablehand by around a month's wages, but I liked the thought of losing a few septims better than I liked the thought of coming back to a half-starved horse. I'd put the poor animal through enough already; the least I could do was keep it properly fed and sheltered.

Bravil was full of more sailors and fishermen than a Waterfront brothel, but I couldn't find a single one willing to take me to the door. Or even lend me his boat, throw me a paddle, and point me in the right direction. Still, that door was the best lead I had, so if seeing what was on the other side of it meant swimming around the bay until I found it, I was going to have to live with that. I just hoped it wasn't too far from shore. And that none of Lake Rumare's slaughterfish had decided they wanted a change of scenery. I'd picked up enough scars working for Martin as it was; the last thing I needed was for something to start trying to eat me.

Luckily for me, the door wasn't hard to find. It gave off a bright, purplish light from a twisted little island covered in colorful plants and giant mushrooms that didn't grow in any part of Tamriel I'd ever seen. The fact that it was sitting in the mouth of a giant statue of someone's face instead of a pair of sharp, rocky spikes had me feeling pretty sure it didn't belong to Dagon, at least, though I couldn't have begun to think what Daedric Prince _had _opened it. All the bright colors on the plants around it seemed friendly enough, though, and I figured I should at least have a look at what the world on the other side of it looked like. If things got out of hand, I could always just leave and wait for someone else to take care of it. I took a deep breath, then took a few steps closer to the door, and had to take just as many steps back when another Dunmer threw himself through it form the other side, screaming like he'd just sat through a performance of _The Lusty Argonian Maid_.

"It's not right! Madness! Why? Why? Everything is wrong! It can't be done! Stay away from me! I won't go back. I won't go back! You can't make me go back! I'll kill you all! You're all going to die!" he cried, and threw himself at the guard watching over the door. He was a mangled corpse bleeding out on the ground a few moments later.

Watching someone come out of the door like that had me feeling a bit less enthusiastic about going through it myself, so I decided to have a talk with the guard first. Or at least, I tried to, until the door started shouting at me.

"Unworthy, unworthy, unworthy! Useless mortal meat! Walking bag of dung! A nice effort, though. A shame he's dead. These things happen. Bring me a champion! Rend the flesh of my foes! A mortal champion to wade through the entrails of my enemies! Really, do come in. It's lovely in the Isles right now. Perfect time for a visit," the door said. The last bit was probably directed at me, unless it thought that the guard would be interested in going through it after the last person it spat out had attacked him.

The door didn't seem friendly, by any stretch of the word, but then again, the door to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary hadn't, either. And even with the shouting, it still sounded less angry than an Oblivion gate would have, if they'd been able to talk. Once the guard put his sword away and stopped looking like he'd stab the next thing that moved, I headed for the door again. It wasn't like I had any better leads on finding Daedric artifacts, anyway. And then I had to stop again when the guard grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me around to face him.

"I'd stay back from that door if I were you. Nothing that's gone in has come out right," he said, shaking his head.

"So, this isn't the first time this has happened?" I asked, nudging the crazy Dunmer's corpse with my foot.

"He wasn't the first, and I doubt he'll be the last."

"I don't suppose you've learned anything about the door while you've been out here, then?"

"I don't know where it came from, and I don't want to. Those who've gone in have come back out... wrong. I'm just here to warn others to stay away. You saw what happens in there; perfectly normal people go in there, and raving lunatics come out!"

"I'm going in," I said, wrenching my arm free. It was probably a terrible idea, and more likely to get me killed or seriously injured more than anything else, but my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see for myself what had driven so many people insane, no matter what happened. I'd never been "perfectly normal", anyway.

"Ha! It's your funeral. I'm just here to warn people, not keep them out. Go ahead in. I'll be here to clean up the mess when you come out."

I didn't pay any mind to the guard's parting remark, and stepped through the portal before I had a chance to think twice about it. A few weeks later, I stepped back out of it, without knowing much more about it than I had before. If anything, I was even more confused. It turned out that the door was a portal into the Shivering Isles, and after fighting my way through a hulking, patchwork gatekeeper I managed to get myself an appointment with Sheogorath himself. Which went about as well as a meeting with the Daederic Prince of madness can go, I suppose, until I found out that he wanted me to help him save his entire plane of Oblivion from being taken over by Jyggalag's forces of Order instead of carrying out a small task in exchange for a daedric artifact. I didn't quite like the thought of saving a second world when I still hadn't managed to save my own, but angering a Daedric Prince in his own realm had seemed like a _very _bad idea, so I went along with it, anyway.

To make a long story short, I did manage to stop Jyggalag from conquering the Shivering Isles, but Sheogorath himself got a bit lost in the process. I was still a bit fuzzy on the details of it, myself, but somehow that meant I was the new Sheogorath, and I'd lost any chance of getting a Daedric artifact out of the old one. Except for a Staff of Sheogorath that I'd cobbled together myself, which probably didn't count. Still, at least I had Sheogorath's Chamberlain, Haskill, to keep the Isles running for me while I was away. Which was a good thing, seeing as I didn't have any plans to start being a Daedric Prince, if I even was one, until I was good and ready for it, and that wasn't going to happen any time soon. If it happened at all.

The guard outside the door recognized me, even if he refused to talk to me on principle, so at least I was still an ordinary enough Dunmer on the outside. Once I'd had a good look at my reflection, just to make sure I still looked like me – the last thing I needed was for someone to mistake me for a Daedra and try to kill me or send me back to Oblivion - I headed straight for Cloud Ruler Temple. I hoped that using the actual blood of a Daedric Prince, even if I was one on a technicality, would work just as well in Martin's ritual as an artifact made by one. And that Martin would believe me when I told him where I'd been for the last month or so.

Martin didn't greet me at the door this time, but the way he smiled when he noticed me sitting across from him at his table couldn't have been anything but genuine. What the man still saw in me after I'd lost him the Amulet of Kings, I'd never know. "Well, look who finally decided to come back to us! We were beginning to worry about you," he said. "I take it you've found us an artifact?"

"That depends on how literally that book of yours can be taken…" I replied. When Martin just raised an eyebrow at me, I added, "I think I can be reasonably sure that I'm Sheogorath now. So, will the ritual still work if I just bleed on something?"

"Please tell me this is some sort of joke..."

"I'm afraid not."

"You wouldn't be horribly offended if I requested some form of proof of this, would you?"

"Not at all." I unstrapped the Staff of Sheogorath – or the staff of myself, I supposed, but that was beside the point – from my back and handed it to Martin. "I'd offer to use this in the ritual, but I put it together myself before becoming Sheogorath, so it's not really a Daedric artifact…"

After looking it over and making a failed attempt to use it himself, Martin handed the staff back to me. "It seems real enough, and you don't seem to have had your mind tampered with; for the time being, I see no reason not to believe you. As for whether or not the ritual will work using your blood instead of a proper artifact, I don't see why it wouldn't."

"Wonderful!" I figured it was best to get my blood on something before anything had a chance to go wrong this time, so I grabbed a fork off the table and jabbed it into my arm. It stung a little, but I'd gone through worse, and it didn't take long for me to stop bleeding once I'd pulled it out again. The fork just looked a bit bloody at first, but it started changing color as my blood dried, until the silver it was made of had turned itself pink. Actually accomplishing what I'd set out to do for a change felt better than I have the words to say, and I couldn't resist holding it up and crying, "Behold! The Dessert Fork of Sheogorath!" Even if everyone else in the main hall, including Martin, looked at me like I'd grown a second head afterward. All the other Daedric artifacts seemed to have names, after all. I didn't see why my fork was any different.

"You do realize that there are other ways we could have done this, right?"

"Does this mean the dessert fork isn't going to work? Because I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a Daedric artifact now… It's giving off a lovely pink glow."

Martin sighed, and shook his head. "Its wielder shall never have to fear eating their meals in darkness again."

"Let us take a moment to revel in its awesome power."

We did manage a moment or two of silence, but it turned into a longer moment of laughter as soon as it was over.

"How do you think of these things?" Martin asked, "Most people would have filled some sort of small container with blood and left it at that…"

"Most people also would have run away the moment they saw that Oblivion Gate outside Kvatch; it's probably a good thing I'm not like them. And where's the fun in having a puddle of blood when you could have a glowing fork? If I'm going to create a Daedric artifact, I'm going to create a proper one."

"It seems that Sheogorath chose his champion wisely."

"You know, you're awfully accepting of this Daedra business. Are you sure you're really a priest?"

"I haven't always been a priest. In my youth, I followed a different path. I know more than I want to about the seductive power of daedric magic. Let's just leave it at that."

"That's hardly fair; you know plenty of worse things about me than that. You could at least tell me who you used to worship. It's not like I'm in any position to judge you for it."

"I suppose it is unworthy of me to deny you the same level of trust that you have placed in me. If you must know, I used to be quite a favorite of Sanguine's… a lifetime ago, it seems now. I think you can work out the rest for yourself."

Well, that explained how accepting he was of everything I'd done. So long as he didn't change after he was crowned, maybe Martin actually had a chance of convincing the rest of the world to be a bit more accepting, too. Getting him out of Kvatch alive was definitely worth shutting an Oblivion gate for. "You, my friend, are going to be the best emperor Tamriel has ever seen. Talos would be proud."

"You can stop that, you know. You aren't getting paid to compliment me."

"With all due respect, you're not paying me at all. If I didn't like you, I'd just say so."

"I'll make sure you get some form of compensation when this Oblivion business is over with, I promise."

I shrugged. "I'll believe it when I see it. Either way, everything I do is on a purely voluntary basis. Whether it's slaying fearsome Daedra or complimenting my future emperor."

"Thank you, then… That means a lot."

"Um… right. Glad to hear it. Anyway, here's your Daedric artifact," I said, handing my fork over to Martin. It was probably best to get back to the task at hand before things got too sappy. I'd never done well with sappy things. They were just… too mushy and awkward for my liking.

"Someone is going to be incredibly confused when this decides to pop up again," Martin mused, setting the artifact on his desk.

"Isn't it wonderful? Just imagine the look they'll have on their face…"

"It would be quite the sight."

"So, is there anything else you need me to do?"

"Isn't there always? I still haven't quite finished deciphering what we need for the next part of the ritual, but you should talk to Jauffre. He needs your help. Trouble down in Bruma, I think."

"I'll go and do that, then. Good luck on your deciphering!" I replied, making my way out of the temple and into whatever Jauffre had in store for me.


	8. Fake Deaths and Real Zombies

A/N: Hello again! Here we are at the revised chapter 8. Thank you to Kako Koritsi and Nightlain for reviewing this last time; you guys are amazing, and I am extremely grateful for your support of this fanfic. The biggest changes here are some tweaks to the narrative so that things flow a bit more smoothly and logically, as the original version of this got a bit hard to follow in places. I hope that you enjoy the chapter and, as always, any and all feedback that you may have for me is more than welcome!

Disclaimer: All I own here is Remy. And the Dessert Fork of Sheogorath, wherever it may be.

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><p>It turned out that the "trouble in Bruma" Jauffre needed my help with was another Oblivion gate. Never mind that I hadn't seen a single real fight before all this Oblivion business started, or that I'd only survived my first Oblivion gate through blind luck; apparently I was a better man for the job than, say, any of the dozens of highly-trained Blades sitting around Cloud Ruler Temple. And he wanted me to meet up with Burd, Bruma's captain of the guard, at that exact moment. Which would have been fine, any other day, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a proper meal or a full night's sleep – Sheogorath had <em>not <em>been a patient employer - and I'd hoped to remedy that before trying anything that was likely to get me killed. Still, I didn't want to be remembered as the man who handed the world over to Mehrunes Dagon in exchange for a nap, so off I went. Down the side of a mountain, in the dark, on foot, during a snowstorm.

In spite of the conditions, I made it back to Bruma without falling once, and found a great, flaming Oblivion gate that matched the one I'd seen at Kvatch sitting just outside its walls. A cluster of guards seemed to have the Daedra streaming out of it under control, though judging by the corpses surrounding the gate, they were a few men short of the number they'd started with. While I tried to figure out the best way to get their attention without getting myself attacked by accident, a middle-aged Nord caught sight of me, broke off from the rest of the group, and trotted over to me. He introduced himself as the Captain Burd I was looking for, and before I could so much as say 'hello' he'd dragged me and two other guards through the gate and into Oblivion.

As I stepped through the gate, a blast of cold, dry, burnt-smelling air that seemed to be trying its best to choke the life out of me blew over to greet me. Closing an Oblivion gate wasn't going to be any easier the second time around… Now that I had to drag three guards along with me, all of which had sets of heavy, noisy armor that meant I didn't have much chance of running or sneaking my way through, it was probably going to be even harder. If I'd learned anything over the past several weeks, it was that I was suited for melee combat like a slaughterfish was suited for flying, and I was suited for leading people even less. Especially when those people were counting on me to guide them through a ridiculously dangerous task that I'd barely survived the first time. They'd even had to go and make things all awkward by calling me the 'Hero of Kvatch' for some reason. It was almost enough to make me wish I'd sold the thrice-damned Amulet of Kings and run like made when I'd had the chance. That was hardly the time for dwelling on the past, though, so I led the way as best I could and tried to look like I knew what I was doing.

Several maulings, burnings, and two dead guards later, Captain Burd and I stood at the top of the gate's Sigillum Sanguis, bloody and beaten, but still breathing. I didn't waste any time before plucking the sigil stone out of its place and getting us transported back to Tamriel, where at least the guards we'd left behind were still standing. After Burd thanked me for lending a hand and assured me that he and his men could handle any other Oblivion gates that opened up, all I could manage was a weary nod before dragging myself back up to Cloud Ruler Temple. Once I'd let Jauffre know that the gate was shut, I let myself into the main hall, looking for some food, a nap, and a decent healer. Not necessarily in that order.

That plan went out the window when Martin called me over as soon as I'd shut the door behind me. I tried not to look too put out as I flopped down in the seat across from him. He might have just wanted to thank me for closing the Obllivion gate, after all. There wasn't any sense in worrying over work I hadn't been given yet.

"Now that Jauffre's finished with you, I have some good news," Martin said, looking quite pleased with himself. "I've made some progress in deciphering the gate-opening ritual."

"That's great..." I tried to force a smile onto my face, though I'd have bet every septim I had that whatever Martin had found would result in me having to do something life-threatening. Everything else had so far. "What's next on our list?"

"The second item is the counterpart to the first: the blood of a Divine. This was a terrible puzzle to me. Unlike the Daedra Lords, the gods have no artifacts, and do not physically manifest themselves in our world. How then to obtain the blood of a god? But Jauffre solved it. The blood of Tiber Septim himself, who became one of the Divines. This is a secret remembered only by the Blades, passed down from one Grandmaster to the next. Jauffre should tell you himself."

"Got it. I'll get… right on that…" I mumbled. It felt like I was trying to talk through a mouthful of cotton, and the room had started going in and out of focus for some reason. I shook my head to try and clear my vision enough for Martin's face to look like him instead of a fleshy blob, but it just made everything worse. Before I knew what was happening, the room started to spin. I couldn't hold onto my chair, and the last thing I remember before everything went dark is the floor rising up to meet me.

I woke up next to the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket that was too soft and clean to be mine. I sat up, trying to figure out what had happened, and once I'd worked my way free of the blanket I realized that I was wearing a layer of bandages instead of my armor. After a quick look around the room, I found my armor sitting in a neat little pile on a nearby bench, along with Martin.

"Are you all right?" he asked, looking at me the same way my mother had when I'd nearly broken my arm falling out of a tree as a child: worried, but like he'd throttle me if I did it again.

"I'm fine. What happened?"

"You lost consciousness while we were discussing the next item we need to access Camoran's Paradise. I apologize; I should have realized you were in no condition to discuss such things."

I shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I just needed a bit of a rest, that's all."

"And half the healing potions and bandages in the temple. Why didn't you get yourself healed before coming all the way up here? What would have happened if you'd passed out on the road instead of in the main hall? You need to start taking better care of yourself; we'd be lost without you."

"I guess I just wasn't thinking about it… And I'm not that important. I just got lucky and managed to close a couple Oblivion gates. Anyone could have done it, really. It's just that no one else has been stupid enough to try. Don't know why they started all this 'Hero of Kvatch' business, either. The city was already destroyed by the time I got there; all I did was clear a few Daedra out of the rubble."

"That may be the case, but until someone else manages to close an Oblivion gate, we can't afford to lose you." Martin paused for a moment, then gave me a crooked little smile, like he'd just thought of something funny. "More importantly, who else would put up with the ridiculous amount of work we saddle you with? You've gone far above and beyond your duties as a messenger, my friend."

"Anything for my favorite emperor. So, am I ready to find that armor now, or do I need to stay put and heal for a while longer?" I asked, tugging at the end of a bandage around my chest.

"You're free to go whenever you want, so long as you keep yourself properly healed and rested from now on. I'll continue my study of the Mysterium Xarxes while you're away."

I didn't lose any time in putting my armor back on and finding Jauffre again. He crushed my last hope of carrying out a simple, safe task when he told me that the armor of Tiber Septim was stashed away deep in the catacombs of Sancre Tor, which had claimed the life of every last Blade that had gone into them over the years. All of which would have been much better prepared to face whatever was haunting the place than I was. Honestly, I hardly saw the point in trying; Jauffre had outright told me I'd probably die in there. Apparently the Divines really, really, hated me. Not that that had stopped them from choosing me, of all people, to help Martin sort out this Oblivion mess, of course. Then again, if I really had become a Daedric Prince, they may not have had control of me, or what I did, anymore. Granted, even the prospect of dying in Sancre Tor wasn'tenough to make me abandon Martin and his quests, but it was still comforting to think that I could if I wanted to. If I was going to die, I'd be doing it on my own terms.

At least Jauffre had also asked me to try and convince the leaders of Cyrodiil's other cities to send aid to Bruma in case more Oblivion gates opened up, so I had an excuse to avoid going after the armor right away. It probably meant I was a cowardly milk drinker, but I just didn't feel ready to go charging into sealed and, more than likely, haunted ruins in search of a set of armor that might not actually work as part of the ritual. Of course, begging for soldiers in a few cities probably wouldn't make me feel any more ready, but it _would _give me a chance to replenish my supply of potions and make up for all the sleep I'd lost. Cheydinhal seemed like as good a place as any to start, and I still needed to pick up my reward for the Dreth contract, so I figured I'd stop by there first.

My attempt at collecting reinforcements for Bruma fell through when I found out that I'd need to close another Oblivion gate first, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I'd wanted to, at that point. I'd just need to come back for it another time. With that taken care of, I made my way to the sanctuary, hoping that Vicente wouldn't be too upset with me for disappearing for so long. At least I'd fulfilled my contract first, so I hadn't left any clients waiting. That had to count for something.

"So, our prodigal brother finally returns," Vicente said as soon as I'd entered his quarters. As usual, he'd figured out who I was without so much as turning around; it must have been some kind of vampire power. "We were beginning to worry we'd lost a family member."

"Sorry about that… I had some things come up. Outside the family. It won't happen again."

"There's no need to apologize, dear brother. So long as you complete your contracts in a timely fashion, the Dark Brotherhood has no rule against waiting before you accept another. And I seem to recall that, before you vanished, you successfully infiltrated the Imperial Prison, and eliminated Valen Dreth, without killing a single guard. Excellent work," Vicente replied. After a few moments of rummaging through his cupboard, he handed me a good-sized bag of septims and an enchanted set of scales. Once I'd gotten them safely put away in my pack, he asked, "Would I be correct in assuming you're ready for your next contract?"

"As long as it doesn't involve sewers. Or anything else involving slimy substances of questionable origin. I don't care how much I'm getting paid; I'd like to keep my feet dry for a change."

"That shouldn't be an issue." Vicente smiled in that familiar, unnerving way only he could. Anything else would've just looked out of place on him, really. "I have a special contract that needs fulfillment. In truth, I don't wish to offer it to any other family member. You have demonstrated quite an aptitude for assassination since joining us; I feel it would be a fitting test of your abilities. We're usually called upon to take a life, but not this time. This contract requires us to stage the assassination of a marked man."

"So… my job is to not kill someone?"

"Precisely. You must go to the city of Chorrol and break into the house of Francois Motierre. Inside you will find Motierre waiting for you. Do not kill him! You see, Francois Motierre is a marked man. He owes a considerable sum to the wrong kind of people. So, they have sent an enforcer to kill him. Here. You will use this specially poisoned knife to stage Motierre's death, in the enforcer's presence. Motierre himself will provide more details. This is an unusual contract; Motierre had to make a special arrangement with us before it was approved. I trust in your professionalism."

"All right, then. If you're sure I'm the right person for the job…" I replied, taking the knife from Vicente. I'd have felt a bit better about things if I hadn't been unsure of whether I was meant to see getting sent on the contract as a compliment, or just a polite way of saying that I wasn't as good at killing things as I should've been. "If you don't mind me asking, how did he manage to get this approved?"

"The Dark Brotherhood is not in the business of staging deaths, no matter how much gold is offered. Sithis demands blood, and blood must be paid. In order to accept the contract, we demanded a life. Motierre offered his mother, and we accepted. Lucien has already taken care of that… detail."

I couldn't stop myself from perking up when I heard Lucien's name, though, fortunately for what little dignity I had left, Vicente either didn't notice or was nice enough not to say anything about it. I'd assumed that Lucien had written me off as a lunatic and lost any interest he might have had in me after our last conversation. Not that I blamed him of course; I probably wouldn't have believed my story, either, if it had happened to someone else. Still, if Lucien thought the contract was important enough to get involved in it himself, it must have been important. And if he trusted me to carry out the rest of it, it had to mean that he at least had faith in me as an assassin. Which, considering his less than impressed reaction to the way I'd carried out my first contract, meant that he'd been following my progress since then and approved of the rest of my work. Maybe I still had a chance at winning him over, after all.

After spending the night at the sanctuary, I got myself to Chorrol, and Motierre's house, as fast as I could. It took a few awkward moments of fumbling with his lock to get myself inside, and once I'd shut the door behind me, a man that I hoped was Motierre was hovering over me and fussing over the terms of his contract like a mother hen. My job seemed simple enough: wait for the enforcer to show up, cut Motierre with the poisoned knife, run like mad so I didn't get killed by the enforcer, and sneak into the chapel undercroft to revive Motierre the next day. Then again, I probably should've known better than to expect things to go that smoothly for me, by that point.

Everything started off well enough, even if Motierre made it sound like I was there to bed him instead of kill him when the enforcer finally showed up. I managed to keep myself from laughing long enough to land what I hoped was a fake killing blow on Motierre, and was ready to make my escape when I realized that I had an angry enforcer standing between me and the only door. So, I did what any reasonable person would have done in my position, and ran up the stairs and jumped out a window. My landing wasn't exactly graceful, but I didn't seem to have broken anything, and I'd bought myself enough time to slip out of the city gates before the enforcer could follow me. Light armor definitely had its advantages; there was no way in Oblivion I could've made such a quick getaway in anything heavy.

Seeing as it was still light out, and I had plenty of time to kill before I had a chance to revive Motierre, I made my way up to Chorrol's castle in hopes of collecting a few soldiers to justify my visit to the city, and got the same response that I had in Cheydinhal. The way things were going, I doubted _any _city would willingly part with any of its guards without me closing an Oblivion gate first, and I couldn't very well return to Cloud Ruler Temple without some form of aid, so into the gate I went. Getting to the sigil stone was easier when I could sneak by most of the Daedra instead of trying to fight them all, and I made it out with only a few scrapes and bruises, and lightly singed hair. And then I found out that the Countess' idea of aid was a grand total of two guards. Still, I supposed it was better than nothing, and it would at least explain where I'd been if anyone started getting suspicious of me.

I spent the night at Motierre's house, and snuck into the chapel undercroft the next morning to see if I could wake him up. The antidote to the poison I'd used worked like a charm, and Motierre was up and walking almost as soon as I'd given it to him. Unfortunately, so were the undead remains of most of his family, due to a curse he'd forgotten to mention during our first meeting. After hacking my way through a few zombies, I got him safely to one of Chorrol's inns, the Gray Mare, before I 'forgot' my orders not to kill him for real, and we parted ways. Vicente hadn't said anything about not looting Motierre's house, though, and I seemed to recall him having a rather nice wine cellar that was now unattended…

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><p>It seemed that I had greatly underestimated the potential of my newest recruit. While the Dunmer was as graceful and menacing as the average mudcrab, he did possess a certain level of skill as an assassin, and I had never been one to argue with results. I'd felt a degree of skepticism at Vicente's decision to send Remy, of all people, on a mission as delicate as the Motierre contract, but the end result was satisfactory enough. The Dunmer had proven to be a passably convincing actor, and was quite masterful at avoiding capture, if nothing else. There was also his rather convenient position as the emperor's errand boy to consider. It would remove him from most people's list of suspects for any murder he committed, and provide him with an alibi to satisfy those that did suspect him; he was all but untouchable.<p>

If things continued to progress at their current rate, Remy's potential for advancement within the Dark Brotherhood was all but limitless. And that potential, coupled with his obvious attraction to me, was something only a fool would not use to his advantage. At best, I could have a fellow Speaker under my control, given enough time, and at worst I'd simply have another name to add to my list of conquests. Either way, I won. Which is why I'd made myself comfortable in Motierre's house, waiting for Remy's inevitable return for the numerous valuables the man had left behind. I couldn't have him thinking I'd forgotten about him, after all…


	9. The World Can Wait

A/N: And here we are at chapter 9! Thank you to Kako Koritsi, Alazais Henderson, and Sir. Renais for reviewing last time; you guys are awesome beyond all words! This chapter underwent some serious changes from its original version, as I felt like a lot of the interactions in it just didn't work very well, so quite a few parts of it ended up looking nothing like they did originally. And converting this into first-person POV, while remaining within Remy's somewhat limited vocabulary, was an interesting experience, to say the least, so I'm hoping that turned out all right. Anyway, I hope that this chapter is to your liking, and I would be more than happy to hear any and all feedback you may have for me!

Disclaimer: Remy is mine, pretty much nothing else is.

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><p>The sun had set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink, when I let myself into Motierre's house for what I hoped was the last time. It seemed like a nice enough place, but it was too big to be comfortable, and I didn't like the way the furniture cast long, twisty shadows over everything in the fading light. I couldn't imagine anyone actually <em>living <em>there on his own. All that empty quiet had to get maddening after a while.

I stepped over the small bloodstain Motierre had left on the floor and made my way down the short flight of stairs to the wine cellar. Most of the bottles had labels on them, saying where they'd come from and what year they'd been made, and I suppose I should have cared more than I did, but all I cared about in that moment was how many I could fit into my pack without it bursting at the seams. I'd never seen the point in fussing over labels, and I didn't see any point in changing that just because I'd come into a bit more coin than usual.

Before I'd gotten my pack halfway full, something grabbed me and shoved me up against a wall. I let out a squeak that wouldn't have sounded threatening coming from a newborn kitten, let alone a grown man, as my back hit the hard, unyielding stone, and I reached out to try and grab something, anything, on my attacker that I could use to get them off me. Not that I'd have had much of a chance at fighting off the enforcer I'd cheated if he'd come back for revenge, but I wasn't going to just flop back and let myself die. If I managed to get myself free, I'd have a chance at running away again, and if I could make it back to the sanctuary I was sure that Vicente would have some way of getting rid of him. When I caught hold of a familiar set of robes instead of the enforcer's armor, though, running away was the last thing I wanted to do.

"Would it kill you to just say 'hello', like a normal person, instead of trying to scare the life out of me?" I tried to keep a straight face, but I couldn't stop myself from grinning like an idiot when Lucien dropped the spell he'd been using to keep himself invisible. "I don't bite, you know. Unless you're into that sort of thing. And even then, I try not to draw blood."

"I suppose I could…" Lucien purred, apparently quite happy to keep me pinned to the wall for the time being. Which, if things were going the way I thought – hoped, really - they were going, was fine by me. "But I don't think it would be nearly as fun. Start paying better attention to your surroundings, and this won't be a problem in the future."

"Don't tell me you just stopped by to scold me again… That would completely ruin my day."

"Actually, my intention was to do quite the opposite. I am pleased with the rate at which your skills have improved, and I would like to offer you a reward. If you're interested, that is."

"What exactly is this reward of yours? I don't know you well enough to guess, and I'd rather not make things awkward by jumping to conclusions."

"I'm sure you can figure it out on your own…" Lucien replied, pressing his body up against mine and running his tongue up the side of my ear.

A shiver of pleasure ran down my spine, and I could feel myself blushing violet as my hands tightened their hold on his robes, like they had a mind of their own. I sighed, though even I wasn't sure whether it was in contentment over what he'd done or disappointment that he'd stopped, as he pulled away from me. Saving the world was all good and well, but I'd gone far too long without a chance to enjoy someone else's company quite like this. And it had been longer still since I'd had a chance to do it purely for my own benefit. I could feel the tension melting away already. Still, as much as I wanted to go along with whatever Lucien had in mind, I forced myself to let go of his robes and wriggle out of his hold on me. "I'd love to take you up on that offer, really, but this probably isn't the best time… This has not been a good day for me, and I don't plan on doing _anything _until I've had a drink and washed the zombie bits out of my hair."

"I can't say I blame you; you look like death warmed over. And I'm afraid you don't smell much better."

"Well, that was romantic."

"As was your rejecting me in favor of wine and a bath."

"Point taken… Though I don't recall saying you weren't welcome to join me. Or that I wasn't interested in picking up where we left off afterwards. Things should be a bit nicer for both of us that way."

Lucien smirked, and rubbed the tip of my ear between his thumb and forefinger. "Go and wash yourself, then, and we'll see where things go from there."

I didn't need to be told twice. As soon as he'd let go of my ear, I ran upstairs to Motierre's living quarters, and the bathtub I'd seen there before jumping out the window on my last visit. After giving myself the most thorough wash I'd had in weeks, I went looking for something to dress myself in. Putting my armor back on would have felt a bit ridiculous, but so would wandering back downstairs completely naked. When I caught sight of myself in a mirror, I hardly recognized my own body.

From the shoulders down, I looked like a battle-scarred warrior. Where I'd used to have smooth, blue skin, it looked like someone had painted a series of jagged, pale pink lines all across my arms and chest. A few still had stitches in them, probably from when Martin had tended to me back at Cloud Ruler Temple. The planes of Oblivion had not done my appearance any favors. If I lived long enough, the scars would probably fade with time, but I doubted I'd ever be fully rid of some of the larger ones. After taking a good, long look at my face, I smiled to myself. At least the Daedra had left that alone, so far. I'd just have to be careful to make sure it stayed that way.

Once I'd pulled myself away from the mirror, I borrowed a shirt and pair of pants from Motierre's wardrobe and made my way back downstairs, where I found Lucien waiting for me at a table, with an open bottle of wine, the fancy-label kind with the year it was made on it, and two silver goblets. I sat myself down in the chair across from him, and once he'd filled his own goblet I took the rest of the bottle for myself.

"How badly _did _things go for you today?" Lucien asked, watching me like a mildly amused cat as I gulped down the rest of the bottle of wine.

"It's been more of a bad month, really."

"Yes, I do recall Vicente mentioning you taking much longer than usual to collect your payment for the Dreth contract… Would you care to explain what, exactly, happened?"

"Well, I needed a Daedric artifact for my world-saving hobby, so I decided I'd take a look at that door that opened up in the Niben Bay a while back. A few weeks of madly running about the Shivering Isles later, and I'm technically Sheogorath. So I made my own artifact by stabbing myself with a fork, closed an Oblivion gate, passed out, got sent on a quest to get some armor out of a tomb that no one's come out of alive in years, decided to get some more guards sent to Bruma and carry out a contract or two instead, came here, recued Motierre, closed another Oblivion gate, fought off a whole family of zombies he 'forgot' to tell me about, and then I figured I'd help myself to his wine collection and be on my way. That's about it, really."

"You honestly expect me to believe that you managed to close three Oblivion gates on your own?"

"Well, I had help from some guards on one of them, but most of them died about halfway through. …The Oblivion gates are really the part you're having trouble believing?"

"They would certainly be the easiest part to lie about; anyone capable of carrying out so many contracts without incident would be able to invent a more feasible story than becoming a Daedric Prince to explain why they'd vanished for so long. And I doubt that anyone who's had a conversation with you would have difficulty believing that you're Sheogorath."

"I don't usually sound this insane, I swear." I sighed, and set my empty wine bottle on the table. "My life's just gone a bit strange, lately. It's not like I asked for any of this."

"Most people would be happy to have the opportunities you've been presented with, you know. It isn't every day a man gets a chance to be hailed as a hero by the people of Tamriel."

"Don't remind me… It's all too much responsibility for me. People are calling me the 'Hero of Kvatch' now, and I've probably got an equally ridiculous title in the Shivering Isles. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss being a prostitute. At least I never had any problems living up to people's expectations then."

"You were really that good?" Lucien asked, raising an eyebrow at me as he drained the contents of his goblet.

"Well, I like to think I still am that good, but yes. Most of my customers seemed quite happy with me, at least. That's got to count for something. You're not doubting my abilities, are you?"

"Not at all, my dear Dunmer… Not at all."

Before I knew what was happening, I was out of my chair and pinned against the wall again, with Lucien pressed up against me. He had the same sweet, flower-and-herb smell as the day I'd met him, and I breathed as much of it in as I could as our lips met. I leaned back against the wall when he slipped his tongue into my mouth, pulling his hood back as I ran my tongue along his in encouragement. He had longer hair than I'd expected, and I had to work his hair tie loose before I could run my fingers through its dark brown strands like I wanted. Lucien groaned in what I hoped was pleasure at that, pulling away from me far sooner than I would have liked.

"Not bad," he purred, winding a strand of my hair around his finger.

"I told you so. Now get back to what you were doing before I decide you need to pay for this. And I am not cheap."

"So impatient…"

"It's been a while. You'd feel the same if-" I lost the rest of whatever I'd planned to say when Lucien kissed me a second time, and when he gave that up in favor of nipping at the tip of my ear, I wasn't sure why I'd wanted to bother with talking in the first place.

"Perhaps we should relocate to somewhere a bit more comfortable?" Lucien asked. I dragged my thoughts together well enough to manage a nod, and he took my hand and led me to the bedroom.

The bed looked like it belonged in an expensive inn more than someone's house, and its blanket felt soft under my hands as I sat on its edge. I thought about folding it up and taking it home with me to replace my old, scratchy one, until Lucien sat down beside me with his robes off and his shirt half-open, and I remembered that I had better things to think about than blankets. It didn't take me long to get the rest of his clothing off after that, and once I'd finished slipping out of mine, he had me pressed into the mattress beneath him before I could blink. I knew I probably should have been out closing Oblivion gates instead of wrapping myself around Lucien, but it all felt too good, too _right_,for me to want to do anything but lay back and enjoy it while it lasted. The world could wait a few more hours.

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><p>I was the first to wake up the next morning. It took some doing, but I managed to pull myself away from Lucien and get myself off the bed without waking him up, and went to collect my armor. After getting stuck in it the first time, I hadn't had any problems getting in and out of my Dark Brotherhood armor since, though it still took me longer than I would have liked to get all the ties and buckles holding it together fastened right. Unless I was going to Cloud Ruler Temple, I'd started just putting the tabard from my Kvatch cuirass on over it when I was on the road or passing through a city. It probably looked a bit strange, but as long as I kept it belted, it covered any symbols that could link me to the Dark Brotherhood, and it was easier than changing into a whole new set of armor all the time.<p>

Once I'd finished getting myself dressed, I tried to sneak out of the house before Lucien woke up; there wouldn't be any awkward conversations about where our relationship, if that was even the right word for it, was going, that way. It wasn't that he was a bad lover – if anything, he was probably the best lay I'd had – and I wouldn't have said 'no' to a bit more fun with him in the future, but with the way my life was going, I didn't have the time to commit to anything more than that. Even if I did, I didn't have the first idea what had caused Lucien's sudden attraction to me, and I'd have been a fool to think he hadn't planned to get _something _out of it for himself. Sticking to casual sex seemed like my safest bet for the time being.

And then I tripped over a table leg on my way to the stairs, which toppled a stack of thick, heavy books onto me and the floor. The noise was more than enough to wake Lucien up, and after a moment or two of trying to figure out what had caused it, he gave me that amused-cat look again when he saw me sprawled out on the floor.

"This is an interesting change… Usually, I'm the one quietly slipping away in the morning. Of course, my attempts are generally more successful than this," he said, gesturing to the pile of books scattered around me. "If you're that opposed to doing this again, all you needed to do was say so."

"That's not what I meant by this." I stood up and dusted myself off, trying to get at least some of the dignity those damned books had cost me back. "I'd like to do this again, if we can. I'd more than like it, really."

"As would I… so long as you don't make a habit of trying to scare me to death in the mornings."

"I think I can manage that. But… if you don't mind, I'd rather keep things on a physical level for now."

Lucien got out of bed, and started working his way back into his own clothing. "We seem to be on the same page, then. Good. Getting overly sentimental is… inadvisable, in our line of work."

"Well, that went better than expected… Since we'll be doing this again, is there any chance of you replacing that healing potion? They aren't cheap, you know."

"It isn't my fault you didn't have anything else we could use to prepare you with. Though I suppose I could give you one when next we meet."

"Thank you," I replied. Granted, it hadn't been my fault, either, but I'd never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'd just have to get my next contract or two done as soon as possible.

"On the subject of healing, you should really consider getting those scars of yours looked at. If you continue exerting yourself at this rate, you'll put yourself at risk of a severe infection, and I'd prefer to not have to find a replacement for you," Lucien said, pulling his hood over his head as he made his way to the top of the stairs. Without knocking anything over. "I'm afraid the time has come for us to part ways once more. Goodbye, for now."

"Goodbye." I watched as he turned himself invisible, like he always did. I knew I was alone again when I heard the front door open and shut itself behind him. All in all, things had gone fairly well, and I looked forward to the next time he decided to check in on me. Yes, he was a bit uppity and over-dramatic, but it was nice to have someone who didn't expect me to be perfect. Or even _good_, for that matter. No matter how many worlds I saved. I got the rest of my things, and the soft, fancy blanket, together without any more trouble, and after stopping by my house to drop my new blanket and wine stash off, I set off for Cheydinhal to collect my payment for the Motierre contract.


	10. Killing Mushrooms

A/N: Hello again, and welcome to chapter 10 of this rewrite! Thank you to everyone who read the last chapter, and to Nightlain for being awesome enough to leave a review! I really appreciate it. I'm sorry this chapter is a bit late; summer classes started up and I ended up getting stuck with the earliest presentation date on a huge project, which ate most of my writing time. But I'm back now, and my schedule is a lot more clear from here on out. Anyway, the main change I made to this chapter was a bit of cleaning up on the characterization, and trimming off a bit of fluff that didn't actually go anywhere. Also, I made a slight change to a Dark Brotherhood quest reward here, for the continuity purposes of this particular fanfic. I am aware that things are different in the actual game. Now that all that's out of the way, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and, as always, I would be eternally grateful for any and all feedback you would be willing to offer me! And to all my American readers, hooray for marriage equality! At long last, we're as accepting as Skyrim.

Disclaimer: I still only own Remy, in case you were wondering.

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><p>No one had gotten around to closing the Oblivion gate outside Cheydinhal, but at least it didn't seem to have gotten any worse. I decided to leave it alone. Yes, getting the damn thing closed was important, but so was keeping myself alive, and I didn't feel up to shutting it myself right then. And getting myself killed trying to close an Oblivion gate I didn't feel up to closing wouldn't have been much help to anyone. I wouldn't have any real use as a corpse. Or as whatever I'd turn into when I died. If I could die at all. Not that I wanted to test that, of course. I'd have to see if there was some sort of guide to being a Daedric Prince I could read next time I was in the Shivering Isles. Still, whether I could die or not, the Oblivion gate was staying open for a while longer.<p>

Once I made it through the city gates, my feet carried me down the path to the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary like I'd been walking it all my life. When I stepped into the abandoned house and let its familiar, creaky door swing shut behind me without a second thought, I realized just how involved in the Dark Brotherhood I'd become. I'd thought it would take me years to get comfortable with the thought of murdering strangers for a bit of extra coin, if I ever managed it at all, but there I was, walking into the sanctuary to pick up my next contract without a single speck of guilt on my conscience. It all seemed so _normal _after a couple of short months. By the Nine, I'd only carried out five official contracts in that time; how was that anywhere near enough to do something like that to me?

I only had two words that made any sense as an answer to that: Lucien Lachance. I'd tossed out what little morality I had left in me in exchange for one night with a man I knew next to nothing about, all because of an infatuation with him I couldn't begin to understand. If it weren't for him, I could have… no. If I was being honest with myself, Lucien hadn't changed anything about me. He'd just brought out something in me that had been hiding until I killed that first Mythic Dawn agent. All he'd done was give me a knife and a few words of encouragement. I did the rest all on my own. For some reason, that bothered me more than thinking I'd really done everything for the sake of a good lay.

I stopped outside Vicente's door. If I wanted to leave the Brotherhood, now was the time. I'd saved up quite a few septims from my contracts, and I'd gotten what I wanted from Lucien. I'd finished up the Motierre contract, so I wouldn't be abandoning any contracts if I left; I could just walk away, try to live a good life, and pretend none of this had ever happened. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't want to. Killing was what I did now, whether it was for Martin or the Dark Brotherhood. And it's not like it had changed me much.

Yes, I'd murdered people, but none of them had been anywhere near innocent. Most of them had deserved it, really. And it wasn't like a few assassinations made the Oblivion gates I'd shut any less closed, or the Daedra and Mythic Dawn members I'd killed any less dead. I'd done plenty of good over the past couple months, too. As far as I knew, my personality hadn't changed, either. I hadn't transformed into some kind of cruel, inhuman monster because of a few murders. I still hated dark, cramped spaces, undead things that weren't Vicente still made my skin crawl, and my fear of commitment remained alive and well. I'd just gotten a bit better at sneaking about and wearing impossibly tight leather armor. The Dark Brotherhood made me happy; I didn't see any sense in denying myself that just because I didn't feel as guilty as I thought I should have. I was staying in it, whether it made me a bad person or not.

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding in and let myself into Vicente's room. He was waiting for me, as usual, though his expression had changed. I hoped it didn't mean I'd done something wrong.

"Motierre was alive and well the last time I saw him, and if the enforcer died before I could tell anyone I stole his kill, it wasn't my fault," I said, sitting myself down on Vicente's stone bed. It didn't feel any more comfortable than it looked, and I regretted not using a chair instead almost as soon as I'd done it. How he managed to sleep on that thing was beyond me; it must've been a vampire thing.

"Ah, so Motierre has escaped? Well done!" Vicente handed me my payment. The bag of septims and enchanted bow weren't anything out of the ordinary, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with the key he gave me. "The well outside the house is a secret entrance to our sanctuary. I am glad to say you are now allowed access to it."

"Thank you." So _that's _what the key was for. A secret entrance sounded much more appealing than having to feel my way around a dark basement every time I came back to the sanctuary, and having an actual key for it made me feel… official, somehow. Like I was part of a family again. If Vicente's skin hadn't been ice cold, and his fangs had been a little less sharp, I might have hugged him. "So, what's my next contract?" I asked. I knew I really should have been exploring Sancre Tor, looking for Tiber Septim's armor, by now, but I just couldn't bring myself to dive into another dark, undead-infested hole so soon after my adventure in Motierre's family tomb.

"Well now, you are an ambitious one, aren't you? I'm afraid I have no more contracts for you. Our time working together has come to an end. Instead, you must report to Ocheeva, here in the sanctuary. She will be providing your contracts, now."

"Oh… If you don't mind me asking, what exactly does that mean?"

"It means that you are ready to take on contracts more difficult than the ones I give out." Vicente chuckled. "You are not in any trouble, I assure you. Before you go, however, I wish to extend an offer to you. As a vampire, I may pass my gift on to others as I see fit. You have served me well, and, should you desire it, I choose now to extend that gift to you. Shall I use my dark powers and turn you into a vampire? You may find that it complements the lifestyle of an assassin such as yourself quite well."

I wasn't so sure I wanted to hug him anymore. And the Dark Brotherhood didn't quite feel enough like a family for me to give up having a pulse for it. "Um, it-it's a nice offer, really, but… I don't think I could accept it. I like the sun too much, and I'd probably cut myself on the fangs…"

"Yes, I can understand your trepidation. For it is not every day one is invited to join the ranks of the undead, eh? If you ever change your mind, fear not. My offer will always be open."

"Thank you… I think I'll be going, now."

After an awkward scramble back to the sanctuary's main chamber, I went looking for Ocheeva. Even after the vampirism offer, I felt a bit sad at the thought of not going to him for my contracts anymore. His unnerving smile and sharp fangs had gone from being frightening to almost comforting in the time I'd known him. Still, even if she wasn't half as familiar to me as Vicente, at least Ocheeva never made friendly offers to bite me. And she'd probably be just as comforting after a contract or two.

I found her in her room, sitting at her desk and writing something. When I knocked on her doorframe, she looked up and gave me a smile that somehow felt warmer than any I'd seen on people with lips. "Ah, greetings, I have been waiting for you. As Vicente surely told you, your time working with him has come to an end. From now on, you will receive all assignments directly from me," she said. "In fact, your next contract is available now. In the Imperial City there lives a High Elf who must be removed from existence. Finding this person may prove… challenging. Are you interested?"

"Of course."

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist. Your target is a High Elf named Faelian. He lives somewhere in the Imperial City, and fancies long walks. Unfortunately, that's all we know. We don't know which district he calls home, which establishments he frequents, or anything about his schedule. This contract will require a bit of detective work."

"I'll see what I can do. Any special requests I need to know about?"

"Ah, yes. There is one more thing. The Imperial City is home to an Imperial Legion captain named Adamus Phillida. Do you know who that is?"

"Of course I do. We knew each other on a first-name basis for a while," I said. When Ocheeva looked at me like I'd grown a second head, I realized I probably should have specified how I knew him first. At least she waited for me to explain, instead of accusing me of betraying the Dark Brotherhood straight away. That would've been awkward. "I was working as a prostitute in a section of the city he passed through on his patrol route for a while. We got fairly well-acquainted after a while. And not in the fun way; he wasn't interested in taking… bribes to look the other way. The man takes his job too seriously for his own good."

Ocheeva's face softened. "Quite. He has dedicated his life to eradicating the Dark Brotherhood, and doesn't appreciate when we operate within the Imperial City. When that happens, he tends to make our lives… uncomfortable. Let's not give the good captain any reason to go poking around in our affairs, hmm? If possible, do away with Faelian someplace out of the way. Definitely indoors, with no other people around. A secure location, with no witnesses. This will make it look like a simple murder, Phillida will be none the wiser, and you'll receive a nice bonus. Now go, and may Sithis go with you."

"May Sithis go with you, too," I said, making my way back into the sanctuary. After a good night's rest, I decided to get an early start on my trip to the Imperial City. If Ocheeva didn't know much more than Faelian's name, I didn't think that anyone else in the sanctuary could've given me anything more to go on. Asking them would probably have just been a waste of all of our time. Besides, I knew a few beggars in the Imperial City; odds were, at least one of them could point me in the right direction. At that point, my journey to Sancre Tor was definitely behind schedule, but I didn't see the harm in delaying it until I'd completed my latest contract. It would give me a chance to ask for aid straight from the Elder Council, and if I could manage that I probably wouldn't need to bother with collecting a guard or two from Cyrodiil's other cities, which would save me time in the long run.

After a bit of asking around, and several small "donations", I found out that Faelian had apparently tried to buy Skooma off of more than one Waterfront beggar. With a woman's jewelry. None had been stupid enough to accept something that was so obviously stolen – or try to sell Skooma with so many guards about, for that matter – but he had tried to convince one that the jewelry was a gift from his lover, Atraena, who he was staying with at the Tiber Septim Hotel. And if anyone knew how he spent the rest of his days, it was probably her.

I found her in the inn's main room, sobbing over a locket with a faded sketch of a man that might have been Faelian. She was beautiful, even with her tear-smudged make-up, and she actually managed a smile and friendly greeting when I sat down next to her. If Faelian was willing to leave a woman like that behind to chase after Skooma, and make her cry so much, he'd been alive too long already. A few kind words and a pat on the shoulder later, she'd told me everything I needed to know. Faelian spent most of his time wandering the city, and when Atraena had decided to follow him a few weeks back, she'd seen him go into an abandoned house in the Elven Gardens District. Trying to find him there the next day seemed like my best bet, so I went back to my house for the night.

I made it back to the Tiber Septim Hotel early enough the next morning to see Faelian leave, and if he noticed me following him to the abandoned house, he didn't say anything about it. Once I'd let myself in after him, all I'd needed to do was sneak up behind him and slit his throat. He didn't even turn around.

No one was around to see me when I left the house, and it was still plenty early for me to visit the Imperial Palace and try to convince the Elder Council to send a few Legionnaires to Bruma. The guards at the doors looked down their noses at me when I walked past them, but they didn't try to keep me out of the palace, and one was nice enough to tell me I'd need to talk to High Chancellor Ocato if I wanted anything done.

I grabbed the sleeve of the first person I saw, an Altmer in a set of red robes. "I'm looking for High Chancellor Ocato. Do you know where he is?"

"You've found him. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an empire to run. Submit a complaint to the usual department, and I'm sure someone will take care of it," Ocato said, trying to pull his sleeve out of my hand.

I didn't let go. "I don't have time for a complaint department! I'm with the Blades; Jauffre sent me. It's important."

"From the Blades, did you say?" Ocato stopped struggling, and I let go of his sleeve. "Jauffre sent you? What's this about? Quickly, now."

"We found an heir to the throne, and he's staying at Cloud Ruler Temple in Bruma. I'm here because we need more soldiers if we're going to defend the city and him from whatever the Mythic Dawn decides to throw at us. They've managed to open one Oblivion gate already, and we're not sure how much time we have before they open more."

"This is terrible news. Under normal circumstances, I would dispatch a legion or two to Bruma immediately."

"That's great! I'm sure Jauffre will appreciate it." I didn't know how many people were in a legion, but that sounded good enough to me. It had to be more than two, at least. If I'd known I could've gotten so many soldiers so easily in the first place, I wouldn't have bothered with closing Chorrol's Oblivion gate. "Thank you!"

Ocato held up his hand. "Don't thank me yet. Our circumstances are not normal, are they? I've been pleading for troops for Cyrodiil for weeks, but the generals assure me that the entire Imperial Army is already fully committed. Besides, I'd have a full-scale political crisis on my hands if I tried to pull any troops out of the provinces."

"You'll have a full-scale _Oblivion _crisis on your hands if Bruma gets destroyed! Are you honestly saying that you can't afford to spare _any _soldiers to keep our emperor safe? Not even one?"

"I'm sorry, but the cities of Cyrodiil will have to fend for themselves for the time being."

"How can you say that? Is there really nothing you can do?" I asked. I could feel the anger bubbling up in my veins when Ocato didn't say anything. "What kind of leader is too afraid of his own people to protect the last hope they have of getting these Oblivion gates shut for good? Only the worst kind of… Only a milk drinker would sit back and do nothing while the world comes crashing down around him!"

"Please excuse me, I have things to attend to." Ocato sighed, and started walking away from me. "You can leave willingly, or I can call the guards and have them escort you out. It's your choice."

As much as I wanted to keep yelling at him, I didn't think it would have done me any good. And after my last experience with them, I knew there weren't many things less pleasant than being dragged out of a building by the city guards. I let myself out into the palace gardens and started kicking over the mushrooms there instead. When I'd made it about halfway around the palace, I left the mushrooms alone and went through the gate to the Arena district, trying to think of a better way to get my frustration out. Killing mushrooms wasn't much help, and I wouldn't have any more people to go after until I went back to Cheydinhal for my next contract. I had no idea what I was going to say to Martin, or Jauffre, when they asked how my search for aid was going, either. Hopefully they wouldn't think I was too much of a failure… I knew I didn't have much to show for it, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

Then I noticed a poster for the Arena itself, and figured out exactly how I was going to make myself feel better. If it killed me, at least I wouldn't have to explain myself to Martin.


End file.
